In Deepest Darkness Shines the Brightest Star
by Leafdiaries
Summary: A newly discovered plot by the Hyou Clan forces Jyuusan-hime and Ensei together on a mission to save Saiunkoku. Along the way, Jyuusan-hime will have to overcome her past, her enemies and her annoying escort! M-rating is for later chapters.
1. Friends and Enemies

Before even entering the emperor's chamber, Jyuusan-hime heard the hushed but agitated buzz of voices drifting out a window into the night air. She had thought it odd to be summoned at such a late hour, but now her curiosity took on an edge of apprehension. She rapped her knuckles on the door a few times, and was beckoned to enter by her brother Shuuei's voice.

When she opened the door and peered inside, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of the small group gathered around the emperor's desk. Yuushun Tei, the prime minister, sat at the desk and smiled up at her as she crossed into the middle of the room. Her brother Shuuei perched on a corner of the desk looking uncharacteristically somber. Seiran Shi, known only to a few as the former prince, now served as Yuushun's bodyguard and stood over the prime minister's right shoulder. Shuurei Kou, an agent of the Gyoshidai and a princess of the Kou family, paused unfurling a scroll on the desk to smile up at Jyuusan-hime. It was the emperor himself who swept swiftly around the desk to take her by the hands in greeting.

"Welcome, Lady Jyuusan-hime! We thank you for accommodating our untimely call," he stated with a slight nod of his head and a bright, eager smile.

Though she had only encountered the young emperor of Saiunkoku a handful of times since coming to the capital, each time she had grown to like him more and to feel more at ease in his presence. Despite her family's rejection of the new emperor, Jyuusan-hime had found him not only to be handsome—in fact beautiful, if such a word could describe a man—but also kind, brave and intelligent. If her heart had not already been lost to another, she might have wholeheartedly welcomed her impending marriage to Emperor Ryuuki. Yet, even now, struck breathless by his amber eyes and open smile, she was certain she would never, could never, give Ryuuki her heart, though he plainly deserved to be loved. The best she could do was to pledge her body and soul to the emperor for political purposes, a deal struck with her powerful brothers to save the man she really loved.

"Dear lady, we have a grave and important request to make of you," he stated, his smile fading. "We wish you to go home."

Jyuusan-hime cocked her head quizzically, glancing at Shuuei.

"Sister, it appears our friends in the Hyou clan are plotting the end of the world," he explained, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.

In response to her puzzled expression, Ryuuki described the intelligence reports on recent Hyou Clan activities that had been collected mainly by Shuurei in her investigative role in the Gyoshidai. By the time he had finished relating the details, Jyuusan-hime's emotions had leapt from anxiety to anger and back again. She recalled the utter arrogance of the clan she had grown up loathing, despite their close ties to her own family.

The prime minister's voice drew her back from her contemplation, the sound as soft and soothing as a summer breeze.

"So much depends on your honored family, my lady," Yuushun stated. "With the emperor still new to his position, his power extends over Shi Province, but the regional power remains in the hands of the clans. We had hoped for time to build alliances with the families of color, but it seems the Hyous intend to force our hand prematurely."

His eyes lowered to the map on the desk before him and they seemed to travel over the mountains and across the rivers sketched along the parchment. Jyuusan-hime recognized the rough lines immediately as a map of her home province. When Yuushun looked up at her again, his gaze held a weariness that tugged at her heart.

"Our nation owes its survival in great part to your family," he smiled at her warmly, "especially considering that potentially dangerous clans such as the Hyous have remained withdrawn from public activity for more than a decade, largely as a result of the Ran Clan's influence."

Again, his gaze dropped to the map, and he pointed his index finger to a smudged area on the parchment. "Now, however, the Hyous have begun to exhibit a boldness reminiscent of a time none of us wishes to relive," his normally sunny voice dropped to a more somber note. "During that time, the Hyous acted alone and, though deadly, they refrained from conflicting with the Rans at all costs. Now, it appears they are intent on purposely involving the Ran Clan."

"To destroy us, like an invisible sickness, attacking from the inside," Shuuei added coldly.

"The Hyous would like nothing more than to see a war pitting the emperor's national sovereignty against the clans' regional control," Yuushun added. "Their intended outcome would be that each destroys the other."

She glanced at Ryuuki's youthful face as he intently listened to the report, and she pitied him from the bottom of her heart. She believed that he would some day be a great emperor, if only given the chance to grow into the role. So far, it seemed everyone was willing to wait for him if it meant peace and prosperity for the future. Apparently, the Hyous were the exception. After a decade of silence and inactivity, they chose this moment to take advantage of Ryuuki's youth, inexperience and tenuous position to force him into a corner. They planned to capitalize on everything wrong with the country to drive it to its knees—the weak central government, the regional squabbles, the rivalry between the nobles and the clans, the regional control of wealth and industry, and the desire for vengeance felt by many at court because of the previous king's ruthless rule.

"As the direct descendents of the founder of Saiunkoku, they believe they have the right and responsibility to ensure that a worthy ruler sits on the throne," Yuushun explained.

"But they want more than the throne," Seiran stated coldly. "They want absolute rule, total power, control of industry, economy, legislation—everything."

His eyes met Jyuusan-hime's and a shiver crawled down her spine. She barely knew Seiran himself, but she had heard stories about him, about cold-blooded Prince Seien, since her childhood. As she listened to him, she couldn't shake the sense that death surrounded him, and she was thankful that Ryuuki had become emperor and not Seiran.

"To simply take the throne is meaningless if the eight families truly control the nation," Yuushun continued. "The previous emperor wrested control from the clans through force, often out of necessity, but resulting in animosity that still plagues the nation."

As he spoke, he rose from his chair and slowly limped around the desk, a cane bracing each step. He stopped next to Ryuuki and placed a big brother's warm hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"The current emperor has wisely opted for another approach, to build allegiances, to find common benefit among the clans and to place the peace of the nation at the center of his decisions," he stated, his voice full of pride and praise. He turned to Jyuusan-hime next.

"To rule with a fist is swift and effective, but tenuous and demanding," he related. "To rule with the open hand of brotherhood takes time. The benefits, however, last very, very long. The Hyous are not willing to wait. They have chosen the fist and mean to bring it down absolutely upon everyone, beginning with your family."

Ryuuki reached out a hand to brush his fingertips gently against Jyuusan-hime's cheek before taking her hands in his, pressing them to his chest and looking deeply into her eyes. She felt her breath leave her lungs in a whoosh.

"We regret…from the bottom of our heart…that we must ask you…to be a soldier and a diplomat, though you came here to be our wife," Ryuuki stammered and smiled sadly at her. "We… reluctantly… ask you to carry our message to Ran Province and plead with your brothers on our behalf, on the nation's behalf."

Jyuusan-hime's jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes shifted to Shuuei.

"I'm against it," he declared sharply, rising to his feet. After a moment he sat back on the edge of the desk. "But I can't go myself."

"It's imperative that no one else at court learns of the Hyou plot," Yuushun explained. "We don't want a panic and a call to arms, nor do we want the Hyous gaining allies. If Ran-shogun is not at his majesty's side, it will attract attention that we don't want."

"Believe me, Sister, I am as reluctant to agree to this as His Majesty," Shuuei assured her, "but even to ask Brother Ryuuren…"

"No!" came the nervous reply in unison from the group, bringing a grin to Jyuusan-hime's lips. Though more than capable of handling such a mission, Ryuuren would definitely attract undue attention.

Shuuei cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well…so you see…"

Yuushun looked squarely into her eyes, pulling himself up to his full, considerable height.

"Before you answer, you must be completely clear that this mission is fraught with danger. As a Ran, you are a Hyou target, in addition to the normal dangers of travel. Your life will be in jeopardy every step of the way until you return to the inner palace," he stated plainly. "But only a Ran can accomplish this task."

"If there were anyone else…" Ryuuki blurted out, regret etched in his expression.

"There is no one better," came Shuurei's soft but urgent voice from behind Ryuuki, and Jyuusan-hime craned her neck to catch sight of her small friend, fists clenched, shoulders hunched as if heading into battle herself, a fire of determination sparking in the round eyes that met hers.

Ryuuki turned aside to look at Shuurei, and then lowered his head with a slight nod.

"Jyuusan-hime, if you're offended to be asked to face such danger, then you have me to blame," Shuurei admitted nervously, her cheeks shining a bright pink. "I recommended you for the mission."

The Ran princess turned sharply toward the Kou princess, her eyes widening in surprise.

"A man could never send a lady into battle," Shuurei stated with a confident smile. "But women know what women can do, and I've seen you do things most women can't do. You fight as good as any man…"

"Lady Jyuusan-hime fights better than most men," Shuuei bragged, bringing color to his sister's face. He stepped up next to her and rested his hands on her shoulders, searching her face. The resigned and weary grin he directed at her told her that he already knew her answer.

"You also know a route to Kyuusaiko that no one else knows, don't you?" Shuuei asked, the smirk broadening into a proud grin. Jyuusan-hime smiled back and nodded slightly. "I thought so," he sighed. "You would beat the emperor's swiftest messenger, without even trying."

"The travel is unfortunately only one aspect of the challenge before you," Yuushun added. "Your position as a member of the Ran family allows access to your brothers that no one outside the family would be granted. Not only must you reach them in body, but in spirit as well. We are asking you to plead our case and convince them to disturb the peace of their province to ensure the peace of the nation."

"And to support an untested, uncertain emperor," Seiran added. "It's widely known that the head of the Ran Clan has detached itself from imperial matters because it rejects the current emperor. Though you may gain easy access, you will not gain easy acceptance."

Seiran moved toward Jyuusan-hime, his famous sword, Kanshou, clanking against his armor-clad thigh as he walked. He stopped only inches from her, and his proximity did not please her in the least, seeming to choke the air out of the room. She took a step backward, but almost imperceptibly, he shifted his body to close the buffer she'd tried to put between them.

"It will take all your powers of persuasion, my lady," he commented, his eyes quickly scanning her face in a way that made her feel invaded. "Only someone with a deep faith in His Majesty will even begin to persuade the Ran triplets. Are you such a person?"

His soft voice packed a strong punch as he challenged her to reveal her allegiance or her doubt toward the emperor. She tilted her chin up in indignation, meeting his cold gaze with a fiery one of her own. She grinned arrogantly at her challenger before stepping back from him, away from his steely gaze, and turning toward Ryuuki, where his golden eyes flickered at her like a warm hearth fire.

"Jyuusan-hime," Ryuuki spoke softly. "We're afraid we have overwhelmed you. You must have questions and concerns. If you wish to think about it…"

In one move, Jyuusan-hime bowed from the waist, raising bent arms in front of her, her clenched fist pressed firmly into the palm of the other hand in deference to the king.

"Your Majesty, I gratefully accept this appointment," she stated in a clear, strong voice that rang with confidence and reverberated in the gasps and sighs of approval and relief from the assembled group.

When she raised her head, sorrowful eyes met hers, and Ryuuki's reluctant gratitude shone through his expression.

"You honor us, my lady," the emperor stated, and to everyone's surprise, bowed deeply to her, an action unheard of for a king toward his subject.

"Your Majesty…" Jyuusan-hime gasped and reached out to stop him. As he rose, he grasped her hands in his, squeezing them tightly, urgently, even fearfully, she thought to herself.

"We are deeply pained that we are unable to send a military detail with you because of the attention it will draw," Ryuuki muttered hesitantly. "However, we will not send you unprotected."

"Oh…Your Majesty…" Jyuusan-hime attempted to interrupt, but Ryuuki's spirits had picked up, now that their plans were in motion. "We will dispatch the Black Wolf to keep watch on the Hyou Clan movements, and also we have chosen an escort for you who comes with the highest recommendation."

Jyuusan-hime rested a staying hand on Ryuuki's arm. "Your majesty," Jyuusan-hime bowed her head slightly. "I respectfully decline."

"Hah?" Shuuei gasped. "Sister!"

"Your majesty, honored brother," she bowed to each, "You ask me to act as a soldier for our nation, and so I ask you to judge me as such, not as you would a typical woman. I don't require an escort, but will only be hindered by someone…tagging along."

"Sister, gender has nothing to do with this," Shuuei assured her, an edge of anxiety lifting his voice. "Only a great fool…"

"Only a great fool ignores his own self-knowledge and better judgment borne of experience," Jyuusan-hime replied to her brother and grinned mischievously. "Remember when you taught me this lesson, brother Shuuei?"

Her brother stood dumbfounded, staring at her, his lips zipped tight.

"Then you'll accept my judgment of my own needs," she concluded. "I'll move faster alone than having to keep an eye on this so-called escort. I don't need a babysitter to order me about and to eat up my provisions."

Jyuusan-hime had a deep distrust of others outside her family. Life had taught her brutally that putting faith in others left a person empty and defenseless, and she had never found a way to fill the void that broken trust had left inside her. Instead, she had learned to rely on herself, to develop her skills and build confidence in her own abilities. She had no intention of ever allowing someone else to leave her defenseless again.

Ryuuki cupped her hands in both of his. "We have absolute faith in you, Jyuusan-hime. But for the good of our country, we must take every precaution allowable under such strict conditions."

She knew she had lost this argument the moment his hand touched hers. She could not refuse his earnest concern, so perhaps she could make the best of it.

"May I then choose my own escort?" she asked, casting about in her mind for someone suitable, who would neither bore her to tears nor annoy her to distraction. No one readily came to mind.

"Actually," Ryuuki cleared his throat, absently scratching the bridge of his perfectly straight nose. "We have chosen a most excellent and reliable man."

"Your majesty…" she breathed deeply to rally her patience. "I'm sure your officers are capable soldiers…" and then her effort failed, "but I have no intention of nurse-maiding any self-proclaimed heroes and their egos, nor being forced to listen to intensely boring war stories meant to impress the 'little lady.' It's far too…distracting…to have to compensate for someone else's weaknesses, and there is too much at stake to risk on an unknown person's failure!"

Had her tirade not been quite so passionate, she might have noticed Shuuei clearing his throat or Ryuuki smiling awkwardly as some signal to her. Instead, it wasn't until she'd exhausted her vehement objection that she noticed that everyone in the room had fallen utterly silent, except for an uncomfortable cough or shuffling of feet, and Seiran's inexplicable snickering in the corner of the room.

"Oi, Hime-san, are my stories that bad?"

A deep, rumbling voice came from directly behind Jyuusan-hime, causing her to flinch in surprise.

"They're mind-numbing," Seiran shot back, and Jyuusan-hime's eyes followed the direction of Seiran's harsh comment to its target.

She whirled around and craned her neck sharply upward, only to discover that she recognized the face that smiled down at her, especially the midnight blue eyes that twinkled despite the dim light in the room. How did she know him? Where had he come from? He was far too physically imposing to go unnoticed, as he towered over her, and his broad shoulders seemed to crowd the room, making her feel even smaller than usual.

Shuurei cleared her throat to break the tension. "It was a condition of asking you to take on the mission," she explained to Jyuusan-hime. "I offered an escort of _my_ choice."

Jyuusan-hime glanced at Shuurei for a moment, and then shot an accusatory glare at Shuuei, whose guilty grin admitted that he had been the one to require the condition. Despite their recent long separation, Shuuei knew his little sister well enough to realize she would demand to go it alone, so he beat her to the punch.

"Jyuusan-hime Ran, I am pleased to recommend Ensei Rou to escort you on this mission," Shuurei gestured toward the smiling bear of a man, leaning on a staff as tall as he was. "I promise you, he will never let you down."

"Hey, now! That's a little too much!" Ensei interjected, his expression ridiculously bashful.

"It's the truth!" Shuurei replied, smiling proudly up at her personal champion. "Certainly, you can be…harsh at times…and maybe a little bossy…and you'll definitely have to pack extra provisions," Shuurei rested her finger on her chin, thinking out loud.

"Alright, alright, let's go back to my good qualities," Ensei said, his shoulders sagging.

"Well…Seiran recommended you too," Shuurei added.

"Seiran did?" Ensei's eyebrows arched up, disappearing into the wild, dark hair that jutted across his forehead and down into his eyes. "Really, Seiran? I'm touched."

"We can discuss it further outside," Seiran shot a death glare at him that made Jyuusan-hime shudder. Were they joking?

"Maybe some other time," Ensei gulped and grinned back at the cold eyes leveled at him. He turned back to Jyuusan-hime and bowed slightly. "My boring stories and I are your service, my lady."

Jyuusan-hime grinned in spite of herself, feeling only a slight pang of embarrassment recalling her angry outburst.

When Ensei straightened up, his eyes rested on hers and instantly widened in surprised.

"Ho, ho! The kotori from the highway!" he proclaimed, his voice overwhelming her in the cramped room. He leaned down to look her squarely in her wide eyes. "You didn't mind my help _that_ day," he observed in a quiet, conspiratorial tone, adding a wink.

Kotori? Little bird? That was it! She drew in a quick breath and pointed at Ensei. "The kind traveler?!" she exclaimed, as the gates of her memory flew open to a day only a month ago on the road to Kiyou. Sure enough, Ensei was the unknown hero who had appeared out of the woods in the nick of time to help her escape a large group of attackers that had surrounded her. He had called her a little bird that day too, irritating her with the cutesy reference to her petite size.

"Um…have you already met?" Shuurei asked and glanced between the two.

"Eh," Ensei scratched his head. "Not really."

"Um, briefly," Jyuusan-hime added with a shrug, and she related the circumstances of their chance meeting in the woods.

Shuuei gently reprimanded his little sister for not telling him about this incident earlier. Yuushun questioned whether or not such interest in her precluded her from the mission. However, Jyuusan-hime assured them that the encounter had been a random robbery attempt by highwaymen preying on a lone woman. Fortuitously, Ensei had been nearby making his way to Kiyou as well and interceded, allowing Jyuusan-hime to escape without a scratch. She explained the event as so inconsequential that it had slipped her mind.

Guilt gnawed at her stomach for a moment because she knew that, when she completed this mission, she would have to apologize to everyone. She was lying to her brother and all those who had entrusted her with this important mission. She knew the attackers on the road that day were not just bandits, but were actually assassins exhibiting very familiar battle skills.

Having been raised among the Shiba clan's military and guerilla tacticians, Jyuusan-hime recognized the unmistakable fighting style in the mob that beset her that day. In her haste to escape, she assumed that targeting her had been a case of mistaken identity. Shiba assassins would never intentionally aim for a Ran. Then again, Shiba assassins didn't make mistakes. If the attackers really were Hyou assassins, they had somehow been extensively trained in the Shiba fighting style. Now that she knew about the Hyou Clan plot, she realized that it was no accident she had been attacked.

Still, she knew that if she had told all of this, she would have been immediately removed from the mission, despite any valid arguments she might present. Her brother Shuuei would have insisted on her removal, jeopardizing the mission, only to protect her. She decided on the spot to spare Ryuuki the anguish of that decision by keeping the information to herself. She knew that her value to the mission more than outweighed any risk she brought. However, she had been trained well enough to take all available precautions to minimize those risks. Reluctantly, she had to admit that Ensei had already more than proven his worth against the very same attackers she would surely encounter on this mission.

"I guess I have no choice," Jyuusan-hime sighed, grimacing impatiently up at Ensei's goofy smile. "We split the work and provisions 50-50." She glanced up and down his large frame. "If you need anything else, you're on your own."

He chuckled cheerfully. "That's the spirit!" he stated and energetically slapped her on the back, knocking her off balance. She spun around and glared at him, but he had already turned to Shuurei and was receiving a lecture about being on his best behavior.

With dawn streaking low across the horizon, Jyuusan-hime emerged from the emperor's chamber, behind Yuushun and Shuuei and followed by everyone else, including the emperor who had insisted on escorting Shuurei home. Each person acknowledged Jyuusan-hime as they took their leave, even Seiran, with a slight nod of his head and a brief smile, which Jyuusan-hime returned with equally thin sincerity.

"That was just creepy," she muttered to herself, watching Seiran disappear into the shadows of the dark courtyard.

"He grows on you after a while," Ensei replied, as he walked past Jyuusan-hime down the low set of stairs, stopping at the bottom to stretch his arms out and yawn noisily.

"Not likely," she replied, a little more curtly than she'd intended. It had been a long day, and exhaustion was getting the better of her.

He turned and looked drowsily up at her, scratching the back of his head. "Kotori-san, blind distrust is as dangerous as blind faith. Either way, you can't tell who your real enemy is."

His words struck her to the core, unnerving her in how direct a blow they landed on her psyche. Who was her enemy? Who wasn't?

Ensei's grumbling stomach broke the tense silence. "Heh-heh, sorry. I wonder if Hime-san has any leftovers around," he pondered whimsically, while Jyuusan-hime struggled to compose herself and resist the temptation to punch Ensei in the jaw. She just wasn't sure what for.

"Get lots of rest today," he added, perching his staff over his shoulder and tossing a lazy grin at her. "We'll attract less attention if we leave from Hime-san's before dawn," he announced sleepily, turning his back and waving as he wandered away into the darkness.

Jyuusan-hime clenched her fists and drew in a deep, calming breath. What nerve! What did he know about her or about anything? Who'd asked the opinion of a mountain troll who'd obviously never been introduced to a comb?!

As quickly as it had boiled up, her anger simmered down to a low bubble, with weariness making its claim on her. She sighed. They hadn't even saddled their horses yet, and she was already spitting fire at her "escort." It was going to be a long journey.


	2. When the Sun Rises

Ensei's face loomed out of the darkness for only a moment as he added another branch to the dimming campfire. The view was just long enough for Jyuusan-hime to glimpse a sadness in his face that she hadn't noticed before. Then again, she wondered if it was just the shadows distorting his expression.

She absently adjusted the wadded cloak she used as a pillow on her makeshift bed next to the campfire. With sleep eluding her, she found herself contemplating her travel companion, now enveloped in darkness across from her. She could just make out the silhouette of his large frame, leaning against a boulder. She couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he was sizing her up, as much as she was doing the same to him.

Only three days into their imperial mission to Ran Province, she'd already been introduced to Ensei's stern and stubborn side, but more than anything else, she'd found him to be…silly, a big goof. He liked to sing while he rode, could sleep literally anywhere, including in the saddle, and, of course, told innumerable "war stories." Still, his tendency to gesture and act out the stories, even on horseback, made them more entertaining than Jyuusan-hime had expected, though she tried not to encourage his antics. There was nothing about him, until that moment in the firelight, that hinted sorrow lay somewhere hidden in his soul.

Yet, Shurrei had told Jyuusan-hime what she knew of Ensei's past—that his entire family had been killed when he was a child. She knew exactly what such an experience did to a person, having witnessed her own mother's murder when she was barely more than a toddler. Certainly, she had learned to live on, even to laugh again, but every light moment had been forever veiled with the shadows of fear, distrust and grief. Even now, when she looked into a mirror, she would sometimes see the same hollow sadness that she had just recognized in Ensei's face.

Still, she thought, looking into the crackling fire, she could smile and laugh, maybe not as wholeheartedly as Ensei did, but still… She had been saved from the utter despair that had threatened to devour her as a child as she sat guard over her mother's dead body. Jin had saved her. Barely more than a child himself, Jin Shiba had come to end her life, sent by his father, her mother's murderer, to eliminate the only witness to the crime. Instead, he saved her, forfeiting the sight in one eye to prove his remorse and repay her loss.

_Jin_. Jyuusan-hime smiled at the rivers of memories that flowed, one into another, always with Jin as their source, and she wondered if such a person had saved Ensei too, giving him the ability to laugh again with all his heart as he so easily did.

Thinking of the two men together made her realize how alike they were—both extraordinarily strong and rough, as unrefined as the wilderness, both hardened and battle-scarred inside and out. Still, Jin's scars hid a gentle soul full of compassion and uncertainty. Ensei bore the scars of his past as well, but his carefree manner dismissed the likelihood of inner demons lurking behind his larger-than-life bravado. Yet, that momentary glimpse of his face in the firelight told another tale.

As sleep evaded her, her thoughts turned to deciphering why Ensei seemed to bring out the worst in her. Throughout the days as they traveled, she had found herself becoming more and more irritable toward him, to which he responded with even more pleasantness and humor, further irritating her. It was unlike her to be petulant. She wasn't the type. She was a warrior first, not a spoiled brat. Yet, it seemed that where Ensei was concerned, the fuse of her temper was remarkably short and volatile.

It wasn't that she disliked him. What was to dislike? He was friendly and cheerful, reliable and capable, patient and fair. One couldn't ask for a better companion on a long journey, war stories and bad singing aside. Even acknowledging his several good qualities, she had still found herself bristling at him with little provocation.

Maybe it was simply that he _was_ her escort that irritated her. After all, he'd literally been forced on her against her will by her brother and the emperor to "protect" her on this mission. She had always resented being treated like a helpless little girl, and thanks to her diminutive size, she often met with that misconception—until she dispelled it, usually at the tip of her dagger. Considering the way Ensei lectured and looked after Shuurei, Jyuusan-hime had every reason to suspect he was the "protective" type. She'd been through all of that with Jin, so she knew the type very well.

Surprisingly though, Ensei had done little to coddle her in the days they had been on the road so far. Instead, he never once hindered her penchant for roaming, and traded back and forth the duty of hunting meals each day. Never once did he reveal any doubt about her ability to fend for herself. In fact, it seemed he expected her to carry her share of the responsibilities.

She should have been pleased that he wasn't fussing over her. That's exactly how she wanted to be treated, after all. So why then, a nagging thought crept across her mind, did she feel her hackles rising whenever Ensei left her to make the campfire, clean the fish or tend the horses? It wasn't the work that annoyed her. That was all part of roughing it on the road. It wasn't that she was doing more than he was. It was…

She rolled onto her back with a huff and stared upwards at the stars winking above.

"Kotori-san, are you well?" Ensei asked, his voice deep and soft, different from the booming tones that carried across wide distances while they traveled. She glanced over at him, startled, but he hadn't moved, still shrouded in darkness.

"Why do you call me that?" she asked, wincing at her own tone.

"Hmm…?" he hesitated before answering.

"It seems…silly," she interrupted. "Am I really like a baby bird to you?" she asked incredulously, her arms crossed over her chest where she lay, staring up at the sky, but only seeing red. "You certainly don't treat me very gently."

"Uh…"

"I'm not the least bit weak or helpless like a baby bird," she added, her anger rising.

"Not at all," he conceded, his silhouette moving in the shadows as he adjusted his position. "But you sure flap around a lot and make a fuss." He included a chicken noise for emphasis.

"What?!" she sat straight up and glared across the fire. Then, she heard the low rumble of laughter coming from his side of the fire.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist," he chuckled.

Anger surged like lightning through her body and her hand shot out to a fist-sized rock lying next to the campfire. Without pausing to think, she reared back and launched the rock at Ensei, who was still snickering at her expense.

"Ow!" he yelped, and Jyuusan-hime smiled at the satisfying "thunk" the rock made when it hit its target. "Hey!" he whimpered.

She lay back down on her bed roll, feeling more relaxed. "I couldn't resist," she added and pulled a blanket up under her chin. She closed her eyes for a moment, but opened them to glance over at the darkness where Ensei sat still. He was too quiet.

"Did I hurt you?" she muttered.

"It might be fatal," he answered in a pained voice.

"Hmph," she grunted, sorry she bothered to ask. She clamped her eyes shut and turned her back to the fire and _him_, insisting to herself that she go—to—sleep. It was pointless trying to have a conversation. He was hopeless.

"The first time I saw you on the road surrounded by those bandits, you looked very small. In fact, I mistook you for Hime-san," he explained in a quiet voice.

Grudgingly, Jyuusanhime opened her eyes, listening to the low voice that came from behind her, not one note of mirth detectable.

"You looked like a tiny bird about to be eaten by a pack of alley cats," he added.

"So you came charging to my rescue," she commented, her back still turned, her voice dripping with derision. Still, against her better judgment, she could already feel her annoyance subsiding.

"Well, that was the plan, but you beat me to it," he said. "You fought your way out and took off, soaring right out of their claws." She heard the chuckle again. "I almost couldn't finish them off, I was laughing so hard."

She remembered the sense of exhilaration she felt that day as she burst free of her attackers. She felt like…a bird. The image he described instantly deflated her anger. She bit her lip and felt the color rising in her cheeks, embarrassed by her own childishness.

"Well, if I'm a bird, you're a bear," she ventured a little humor to smooth over her self-reproach.

"Kotori-san is correct…a warm and cuddly bear," he surmised satisfactorily.

"More like a hungry, hairy bear," she countered and heard his deep, rumbling laugh break out in answer. The sound reverberated around the canyon, sinking deep into her chest, stealing her breath. She stretched out on her back, smiling, and pulled her pack blanket tighter around her.

"Sleep well, mean Little Bird," he added as his laughter quieted and he hunched down against the rock where he sat.

"Good night," Jyuusan-hime said, the lighter tone in her voice much more to her liking than the snapping one she'd been noticing all too much lately. She turned her back to the fire and her eyes drifted shut against the darkness, but sleep lost out to thoughts filled with images, one fading into another.

_Little Bird_. How strange that Ensei should choose that particular nickname for her. How strange that it should pierce her heart so strongly. She remembered just then a pair of large, calloused hands, cradling a baby sparrow that had fallen from a tree. She remembered the sun stinging her eyes when she glanced up from the bird. She remembered the gentle but scarred face swimming through her little girl's tears, smiling softly down at her. She remembered the whoosh of air swirling around her as she was effortlessly lifted from the ground, to put the bird back in its nest.

_Are you somewhere under these stars tonight, Jin?_ she wondered to herself, tears prickling behind her eyes.

Suddenly, she heard the gravel crunch beside her, felt his nearness before that, and spun around to stare up at Ensei, kneeling at her side, his cloak clutched in his hands. A tear slid from the corner of her eye and into her hair before she had the presence of mind to hide her weakness. Without a word, he dabbed the edge of his cloak at her teary cheek, then swept the cloak over her, tucking it under her chin. She instantly felt the heat from his body still clinging to the fabric. The scent of juniper and earth wafted up to her nose from the material stuffed around her shoulders.

"It's getting colder," he commented. She didn't move or argue, inexplicably immobilized by his proximity to her. He twisted away on his knee to stoke the fire. The flames illuminated his blank expression.

Neither the layers of clothing, nor the tall, snapping flames did anything to fend off the bone-chilling emptiness she felt inside.

"Kotori-san," he said quietly, continuing to focus on the embers. "No matter how cold it gets tonight…it'll be over when the sun rises. Stay close to the fire. 'Night." He disappeared back into the darkness and in a moment all was silent except for the crackling flames.

Her tears abated as his words settled in her mind. _When the sun rises_, she repeated soundlessly. She blinked her eyes drowsily, as the heat from the refreshed fire warmed her face. _Who is this guy?_ she wondered, clutching the cloak tight under her chin. She'd have to give it more thought later, she decided, when the sun rises, and drifted off to sleep.


	3. Ghosts in their Cells

**CHAPTER III **

**Ghosts in their cells**

Suffocating heat parched Jyuusan-hime's throat, making it so difficult to breathe that it roused her from sleep. As her eyes fluttered open to the glaring sun, she tugged at the choking collar of her tunic, feeling the sweat pooling on her neck. She groaned uncomfortably and drew herself up slowly from her bed on the ground.

"I must be getting soft," she grumbled, rubbing her stiff back.

Since she'd been living at the emperor's palace for only a month before embarking on this mission to Ran Province, she hadn't expected to miss the soft beds and warm baths so much. Now, less than a week into the trip, she found herself longing for a full meal, a clean outfit and someone else as company besides Ensei, who had been assigned as her escort. She sighed with resignation—in the end, it would all be worth it to save her family and the country from the civil war being orchestrated by the Hyous. She could tolerate the hard ground as a bed, the campfire meals and the bugs and dirt. _Ensei, though…_

Glancing around drowsily, Jyuusan-hime noticed the pleasant quiet surrounding her, which meant that Ensei was nowhere in the vicinity. Both horses remained tethered to trees in a nearby glade, so wherever he had gone, he went on foot. She called for him, but received no answer. Her warrior instinct immediately kicked in and she jumped to her feet, calling for him again. When no response came, she pulled on her boots and slid one of her swords from its sheath lying on the ground next to her bedroll. Examining her surroundings, she tried to detect clues about where he might have gone, and whether he went there willingly and alone.

She tracked the signs on the ground leading off the trail and down a small slope until the trees cleared ahead of her, revealing a small, dark pond circled in tangled reeds and wildflowers. She paused long enough to drink in the irresistible scene: languid ripples widening steadily from the center of the pool, leaves twirling down to rest lightly on its surface, and humming insects skimming across the shimmering liquid mirror that reflected the lazy crawl of clouds above.

Her reverie lasted only seconds, however, when it was shattered by a tremendous explosion of water and noise that came from the center of the pond. Ensei, stripped bare, launched himself up from the depths of the water, howling in delight. His gigantic splash flooded the banks and washed all the way to Jyuusan-hime's boots, where she stood stunned on the shore.

Her wide eyes riveted to his form as he landed back in the water up to his hips and swept his sodden hair back from his face. He rubbed the water from his eyes and then caught sight of his companion staring at him, her mouth slightly agape.

"Uh, ha-ha..." he stalled and then grinned stupidly. "Brrrr… It's cold!" he shouted and then ducked down into the water up to his neck.

Her face reddened in a flash, and without a word, she took two steps backward, spun around and retreated back toward camp.

She tried to busy herself with building a fire, but it was a losing effort. She couldn't block out the image of Ensei's chiseled body, slaked in water, exploding from the pool. Her heart thumped like a fist trying to burst through her chest.

_Damn right I'm upset, _she reasoned away her thundering heartbeats. _It's only natural when you're excited … er … shocked ... And what's he doing … dillydallying … in a pond, anyway? _

A begrudging smirk stole across her lips, followed by a spontaneous giggle bubbling up from the pit of her stomach. She couldn't help picturing his dazed expression, like an oversized 10-year-old caught with sweets on his face. _Dumbass, _she concluded and her grin stretched wider.

The sound of his quick footsteps crunching on the gravel path brought her back to the moment, and she cleared her throat, shuffling off the warmth simmering inside her. She reminded herself sternly that there was nothing funny about this situation. She had gone searching for Ensei in the first place because she thought he might be in trouble. This was a mission, damn it, not a holiday! What was he thinking, taking time to play around in a swimming hole when the country's survival was at stake? Judging from the sun's position overhead, he had let her sleep in when they should have taken off hours ago and been miles from here. Now, they would have to ride twice as hard to make up the lost time. Thanks to _him_, the whole day was a mess, and she didn't mind letting him know her displeasure.

As he crossed the camp in her direction, she drew a deep breath and whirled around ready to blast him, when the sight of him knocked the wind out of her. His wet, shaggy hair glistened in the sunshine, trickling rivulets of water down his neck and under the collar of his clumsily fastened shirt. It appeared he had dressed quickly to come after her, and some parts of his shirt were soaked and stuck to his skin, revealing more than concealing his lean, muscled body beneath.

She averted her eyes, dismayed and confused by her inability to draw a solid breath at that moment. She quickly turned her back to him, busying herself with searching for bits of kindling, though not picking up any of the numerous pieces lying around her feet.

"Kotori-san, sorry about…" he began and stepped toward her, resting a conciliatory hand on her shoulder.

"Finally done, huh?" she cut him off and spun out of his reach, tossing the cold words over her shoulder at him.

"Heh-heh, ya, about that…" he mumbled, scratching his forehead and chuckling awkwardly. He took a step toward her, but she moved away again and shielded her eyes, aimlessly looking up at the sky.

"You shouldn't have let me sleep so late. I'm used to going without it," she stated, a steel edge in her voice. "Now we've lost half a day..."

"Hang on, now," he cut around her this time, blocking her retreat and trapping her between himself and the cold fire pit, leaving no escape route. His large hands circled her upper arms holding her steady so she couldn't turn away from him. "We've made good time so far, don't you think? If we push ourselves or the horses too hard now, it'll cost us later. The horses are showing signs of fatigue, and so are we," he explained and chucked her playfully under the chin.

Ensei's overbearing aura suffocated her. She could barely draw an even breath considering the way his overgrown body surrounded her all at once. He crowded her so much that she had almost nowhere else to look except at the eye-level spot where his wet shirt gaped, revealing the taut lines of his muscular chest. Shifting her gaze to meet his indigo eyes didn't help either because they gave her the disorienting sensation of falling into deep water. She clenched her eyes shut, but it made her all the more aware of the freshwater scent on his hair and skin, permeating her awareness, invading the very air she breathed. Instinctively, she drew in a deep breath, letting him fill her senses. The warm, fragrant air carried her away on a sigh and a memory to a thousand summers ago when the same cool scent mixed with the sunshine on Jin's brown skin, as his wet arms surrounded her and drew her against him on a distant shore in time.

"Oi…Kotori-san," Ensei's low voice hovered somewhere above her ear.

For a moment, desire warred with reality at the sound of some voice other than Jin's speaking softly to her. "Ah, please," she whispered, "just one more chance." All she wanted was a few more minutes to feel the thrill of his body against hers, the way they fit together so warmly, the friction humming between them. _One more chance._

A gentle touch on her shoulder stirred her and, reluctantly, her eyes drifted open again. With a wistful sigh, she breathed the cool, freshwater scent again, and found herself huddled against Ensei's chest, heat burning through the damp shirt against her cheek, a comforting hand perched lightly on her shoulder.

Abruptly, she jumped back from him, stumbling through the ashen fire pit and staring wide-eyed, her cheeks instantly aflame. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Hah?!" he exclaimed. "Now, hold on. You're the one…"

"Forget it!" she yelled, turning her back and clenching her eyes shut, casting about for a way to evaporate into the air. "I…I'm going to take a swim," she snapped at him over her shoulder. "Don't follow me!"

"Follow you?!" he repeated in consternation, but she was already marching angrily through the trees toward the pond.

When Jyuusan-hime reached the pond, she considered herself a safe distance away and slumped down on a boulder to catch her breath. She leaned down to scoop up some water and splashed it around her face and neck. The frigid water was just what she needed—a shock of cold, harsh reality to brace her up.

"He's not Jin," she muttered to herself, splashing more icy water on her heated cheeks, feeling the humiliation seething through her skin. _How could she do something so stupid?_ she berated herself and touched her cheek where it had rested against Ensei's chest. _He's not Jin._

_Why was this happening now, after all this time_, she searched her tumultuous emotions for some steady ground. With so much depending on the successful completion of this mission, she could not afford to let go of the hard-won discipline that kept dangerous memories of Jin locked away deep in her captive heart.

In the last five years without Jin, she had forced herself to bury all the broken hopes, dreams and desires that belonged to the young girl she had once been. Only then could she finally breathe again and feel as though a new day was more than just a fresh punishment. It crushed her to discover that, after all this time, simple things like Ensei's easy laugh, his physical strength and his genuine kindness could unexpectedly stir the embers of memories that should have burned out long ago. Each remembrance, so fond and familiar, had begun to unravel the shroud that bound her broken heart in its grave. Still, as bittersweet as it was to feel her heart flutter again, she knew that it was only the passing echo of her lover's song, sung by someone else.

She smacked her hand over her face. Five years! How many years would it take for her to stop aching for a ghost? What new strategy, what new training, what new skill would she have to master to finally break free from Jin's hold on her?

She caught sight of her reflection in the pond, wavering on its murky surface.

"Weak," she accused the trembling image, venom choking the word in her throat. Five years and she was still just as weak, just as needy, just as pathetic, as the little girl who had cost Jin everything.

_I didn't ask you to die for me_. The selfish, black-hearted thought skulked around the corners of her mind, too shameful to show itself. She bit her lip feeling the sting of tears burning in her eyes.

"I can't cry for you anymore," she muttered aloud, clamping her eyes shut against the weakness she despised in herself.

_Weak_, _ungrateful_, _selfish_ came the reproaching words. _He gave everything to love you. Cry forever._

An ache burned in the pit of her stomach like acid, and she clasped her hand to her mouth, afraid she would be sick. Guilt and regret cut like dull blades, dragging a deep and ragged valley through her memories. A vision of Jin floated before her watery eyes, a vision of the last moment she had seen him.

"_I killed my father, Hotaru. It doesn't matter why,"_ he told her again, as he had on that day five years ago. _"My life for his."_

Just as if she had been transported back in time, she felt the tender touch of his lips to hers, all too fleeting, and with a flash of his cocky grin, he turned his back and dissolved into the afternoon breeze.

_Who else will pay for your weakness?_

Anguish roiled deep inside her and a sudden, loud yowl burst from her lungs, chasing a flock of birds from the tops of the surrounding trees. She clamped her hand over her mouth, shocked at the fullness of the guttural cry that had exploded from inside her and left her lungs empty and burning.

_Jin … please … I beg you … please, let me go … _she whimpered in defeat and her face dropped into her hand.

Just then, Ensei burst through the trees, running toward her, his staff in hand. He halted beside her, spinning from side to side, ready to defend her against the source of trouble.

"What happened? Are you all right?" he asked urgently, when no obvious attacker appeared.

Jyuusan-hime blinked up at him in surprise, overwhelmed by a strong sense of being forced to relive a nightmare. _Who else will pay for your weakness?_

"What are you _doing_?" she snapped, jumping to her feet. "I told you not to follow me!" The air in her lungs compressed, constricting both breath and speech.

He straightened up, taken aback by her angry tone. "You screamed…"

"I don't need _you_ to babysit _me_," she yelled and jabbed a finger into his chest.

"Ow," he rubbed the spot below his shoulder. "Kotori-sa…"

"Don't call me that!" she stretched up on her toes, craning her neck to glare into his face. "I'm not some weak 'little bird' you need to rescue. I can take care of myself just fine without _you_!"

"Now, hang on. I never meant…" he tried to explain and clamped a calming hand on her shoulder.

"LET ME GO!" she demanded, shoving both hands hard against his chest.

"Hey!" he faltered in surprise at her unexpected strength, stepping backward to steady himself. Before he could plant his staff in the ground for balance, the pond embankment gave way under his heel. He grasped wildly at her, latching onto her arm, and hurled them both backward into the water with a tremendous splash.

She bolted up from the ice cold water with a loud gasp. As she stumbled blindly for the shore, she tugged her long, drenched hair off her face, sputtering through the water dripping from it. She made it all of two steps before her boot stuck in the soft mud at the bottom of the pond. She tugged and fussed and struggled to release her foot, yelling, swearing, muttering and complaining the whole time.

"…all your fault…" she spat back at Ensei, who had surfaced somewhere behind her.

"Hold on," he trudged toward her through the thigh-high water. "Stop! You're making it worse." He wedged himself behind her to balance himself and to get leverage to yank her foot free.

"Leave me alone!" she barked when he got close to her. "Let me go!" she demanded when he wrapped his arm around her waist and began to lift her up against his chest.

Despite her wriggling, he managed to jerk her foot out of the mud, but just as he did, she kicked him hard in the knee.

"Ouch! What the…?!" he bit off the last word.

"I don't need your help, so just let me go!" she tugged at his arm around her waist.

"You got it," he replied coldly and rudely deposited her in the water on her rear before wading out of the pond and plunking himself down on the shore. Nonchalantly, he started to peel out of his sopping clothes, while watching her struggle up out of the water, sputtering and falling again.

She managed to fight her way up onto the bank near him, gasping for air, and flopped on the ground.

"That was rotten," she accused between strangled breaths.

"If you apologize, I'll forgive you," Ensei answered, a stern but calm tone returning to his voice.

"If _I_ apologize?!" she bolted upright and stared at him in disbelief, leaves, twigs and dirt stuck to her drenched hair and clothing.

"I'll settle for an explanation," he added as he wrung the water from his shirt and flung it over a low-hanging branch behind his shoulder. He whipped his hair rapidly from side to side, like a beast shaking water from its coat, and the spray pelted her across the face.

"Jerk!" was the only reply he got as she turned her back to him and wiped her wet face with her wet sleeve.

"Ok, have it your way," he shrugged. "I'm getting out of these wet clothes, and I suggest you do the same," he stated matter-of-factly, then added, "and if you don't want a repeat of my earlier performance, you should keep your back turned."

"Oh!" she exclaimed angrily and scrambled to her feet to run back to camp.

She stumbled into the campsite and threw herself onto the ground near her gear. "Animal!" she growled, but quickly felt her anger fizzling into humiliation. Despite her efforts to cling to her rage as she stripped off her wet clothes and tugged a blanket around her, she was worn out and couldn't muster the energy. She really was so tired.

She lay limply on her bedroll, staring up at the wide open sky. It mocked her with its vast and limitless reach, as though she were some forgotten prisoner grasping for its blue promise through the iron bars of her cursed fate, from which there was no escape.

_Who else will pay for your weakness?_

If only she could fly away, she mused sadly, where the dragging memories of broken faith and choking regret were too heavy to follow, where infinite hope stretched its wings over endless currents, and where she would finally, forever, be free. _Just like a little bird._


	4. Dark and Light

Shards of moonlight pierced the forest canopy, carving a stark and jagged path through the darkness. Jyuusan-hime slipped past one silvery beam after another, heading deeper into the woods. She rested a hand on the hilt of her sword, ready for anything that might spring from the abyss surrounding her. The whole world seemed to be her enemy, from the blinding dark to the treacherous terrain to the assassins lurking somewhere only a blade's length away under night's conspiratorial cover.

Shifting pools of light and shade shivered on the ground in shadows cast by the swaying leaves overhead. Her eyes strained to focus on the slight movement of some hulking creature just ahead. She sighed quietly, recognizing Ensei's silhouette barely discernible in the gloom. He knelt on one knee behind a thick tree trunk, leaned out enough to see her and motioned for her to advance toward him. She moved forward coming up behind him, ignoring the shameful relief she felt that impending danger precluded any chance for them to talk. Since her angry tirade at the pond that afternoon, they hadn't seen each other until this moment. Now, with enemies surrounding them, talk would have to wait.

The snap of a twig up ahead resounded like cannon fire in the silent wood. Another rustle of leaves to the rear had Ensei's eyes meeting hers. Silently, he reached his hand into the pool of dead leaves at their feet and lifted his heavy staff from where it rested on the ground beside him. A confident smirk lifted the corner of his mouth, and the moonlight danced with abandon in his dark eyes.

_He's ready_, she noted, feeling her own giddy rush of reckless energy. Her pulse quickened, steeling her resolve. Her mind cleared of all but the merest memory of her first fight beside Jin, when she discovered that fear could evolve into strength and doubt could become determination. Fighting alone in the years since losing Jin had taught her self-reliance and confidence in her own ability. Yet, now, she found herself unexpectedly eager to fight alongside a comrade again. No matter what else she thought of Ensei, she'd heard enough about his fighting skills from everyone at the palace to whet her curiosity to see him in action. She was about to get her chance.

She slid her double blades from their sheaths and nodded to Ensei, indicating her readiness to move. He pointed to himself and then pointed in the direction of the first sound they'd heard. Then, he pointed to her and motioned for her to circle around from behind, moving toward that position. She nodded quickly, seeing the strategy play out in her mind. It was a sound tactic—he would draw the enemy's attention to him and pull them out of the shadows, so they could see how many they were up against; she would attack from the rear, maximizing the element of surprise and dividing the enemy's strength.

Ensei held up his hand for her to wait, so she crouched low, muscles coiled tightly, and watched the profile of his face as he turned away to listen again to the whispers of the forest. He turned back to her, and their eyes locked, hers wide and round with anticipation, his steady and dark. He pointed to her again, this time his index finger touching just below the collar of her tunic. Reflexively, she looked down, and he jerked his hand up to pop her gently under the nose. He let out a hushed snort of laughter at her bewildered expression before winking and bounding away into the darkness.

"ASS!"she growled to herself through gritted teeth, as rage replaced surprise and exploded through her body, propelling her to her feet and off in the direction their strategy dictated. If they survived this, she would kill him herself, she vowed, imagining a myriad of tortures she would employ as retribution for his childish and poorly timed prank.

She could already hear Ensei, engaged in battle, laughing and taunting his opponents. She rolled her eyes at his ridiculous antics as she skirted the dark recesses of the forest, closing in on his location. She had a good mind to let him take a bit of a beating before she swooped in to rescue him. Just then, though, his voice caught her attention, and she realized that his loud taunts were full of information.

"Another one from the east, huh?" he shouted and laughed. "That makes five of you! Is that all?"

"Ho-ho, so you like to use daggers! You're daring, fighting hand-to-hand with me," he called out.

"Now, two of you ganging up from behind is just plain cowardly," he complained.

Her mouth curved up in a reluctant smile. He was really too much. He'd manage to tell her everything she needed to know to position herself at the greatest advantage, but never gave away his intent. The assassins who had attacked the camp had seen her dash off into the forest, but they didn't seem to be too concerned about her, focusing all their attention on Ensei and playing nicely into their strategy.

"Not worried about the little girl, huh?" she contemplated to herself. "I'll make you regret underestimating _me_."

She crept closer, following the thunk and crack of Ensei's staff against steel and bone, until the trees ahead of her parted and revealed the center of commotion, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight cutting erratically through the trees. Ensei's rapidly moving staff glinted in the weak light and cut the night with a hum that made the air itself shiver. Five assassins, all masked and dressed in black, surrounded him, and two others already lay sprawled and motionless on the ground.

Even as she circled closer to the battle, she calculated how to best complement Ensei's strengths and weaknesses. Unlike Jin, thoroughly trained in the Shiba fighting style, Ensei displayed no particular battle training, other than a seemingly infallible survival instinct. Where Jin had been a remarkably graceful fighter for a man his size, Ensei was purely athletic, quick and powerful, with the agility to fend off attackers coming from all directions at once. More than once as she neared her destination, Jyuusan-hime drew a sharp breath, surprised at the power that coiled up through his body, from his firmly planted and balanced stance to the force exploding through his back, shoulders and arms. He met every blow that descended on him, seemingly able to detect the slightest movement even on the periphery of his vision.

_Except on the left side_, she noticed, her eyes narrowing. She'd clearly seen it now twice. She wondered if his opponents had detected it. Ensei dropped his left shoulder to favor some blind spot he had on that side and allow him to see further behind him on the left. His reaction time counted at least a second slower on the left than on the right because of it. Jyuusan-hime nodded to herself, now knowing where to position herself. She would draw off any attackers from Ensei's left side, relieving him of that handicap.

As the enemies moved in on Ensei at once, Jyuusan-hime rushed into the fray from the left side of the group, double swords flailing at her targets. She slashed at their hands, stabbed one through the stomach and flipped out of the way of a broadsword that Ensei quickly knocked to the ground, followed by its owner.

_Four down, three to go_, she ticked off in her mind, just before she heard a whoosh of air from behind her and instinctively dropped to the ground and rolled away from its direction. She pulled her head up, eyes darting rapidly in every direction, until they locked on a large black form coming at her, brandishing a long, black-bladed katana. The sword flashed in the eerie moonlight as it descended on her, but she was able to block it in the crossed blades of her swords.

This one had been hiding, waiting for her, she assessed. The assassins had used their strategy against them, knowing she would be lurking on the fringe of the battle, waiting to make a surprise assault. It seemed as if this one knew what to expect from her and had positioned himself in the best way to maximize her greatest weakness in battle—a rear attack. She'd worked on that problem relentlessly with Jin and Shuuei, but no matter how hard she drilled, they always got the drop on her. While her enemy definitely had her in a tough spot, this time at least, she'd had enough field awareness to give herself a fighting chance. She still had a few tricks to play.

Jin had taught her that when one is overpowered or outnumbered, one must revert to strategy. In a split second, she assessed the situation and her surroundings, measured her opponent's apparent strengths and weaknesses, and determined an overall objective. Eliminating the enemy was the obvious answer, but something else nagged at the corners of her mind. She needed to put distance between this attacker and Ensei, to ensure that he didn't turn on her partner in a surprise attack during battle. Ensei already had his hands more than full, holding off the three large and well-trained assassins he currently faced, so she felt compelled to at least keep this one away from him.

With her attacker's weight bearing down on her, she held him off with all her strength, while she formulated a plan to break free from him and draw him into the woods. She decided to surprise him with a frontal attack and hope that he was disoriented long enough for her to make her move. She would have to move fast—very fast—or he would cut her to ribbons.

Just as she was about to put her plan into action, she glanced at Ensei, who had knocked one of his opponents to the ground. Another one, though, was coming back at him with a large club, the end of which was embedded with small blades, gleaming in the moonlight like a tiger's teeth.

For only a moment, Ensei's eyes met hers, and in that moment, he let down his guard, his staff lowering only slightly, but just enough to allow his opponent to slash his chest with the end of the club. Ensei let out a loud yelp and came back at his adversary with a crushing blow from his staff that knocked the man flat on the ground.

That was the moment Jyuusan-hime needed. The commotion distracted her attacker long enough for her to take a glancing swipe at him with her blades, and then spin out of reach and into the shadows of the forest.

"Come get me, or aren't you man enough?" she taunted from the darkness, her voice not betraying how fast her pulse raced.

The man burst toward her, but she was off like a rabbit, running just fast enough to stay out of his grip, but not too fast that she would lose him. She didn't want him returning to attack Ensei, and she had a plan to get rid of him once and for all, if she could lure him into her trap.

Jyuusan-hime darted back and forth through the trees, making sure that her pursuer kept her in view. She could hear Ensei, still in the throes of battle, but couldn't make out what was happening. She wanted to get back to him as fast as possible, but she would have to dispose of her own troubles first.

_Come on…just a few more yards_, she thought as she approached her planned destination. Suddenly, a blow to the right side of her head knocked her sideways onto the ground, her swords skittering out of her hands. Lights flashed in front of her eyes for a few seconds and she shook her head, holding off the black cloud that threatened to smother her consciousness.

_I can't go down now. I can't go down,_ she muttered to herself and tried to struggle to her feet, crawling and scrambling across the ground, the earth reeling around her. Another blow to her ribs slammed the air out of her lungs and flattened her, facedown in the dirt. She felt a sharp heel dig into her back, holding her down.

Still blinded and winded, she spun under the cutting heel and latched both hands onto the boot that crushed down into her ribs. With all the strength she could muster, she held the relentless weight a fraction of an inch off her, so she could at least draw a breath and regain her faculties. She heard a low, dark laugh and peered upwards at the black-masked head looming over her.

"Your mine," the assassin hissed through the mask that gave him the image of a demonic specter haunting the woods. "Don't make me kill you before we have some fun," he added and drew the tip of his katana down the front of her tunic, effortlessly slicing the ties that held it closed.

"Bastard," she spit out through gritted teeth and listened to his repulsive sniggering, which distracted him enough for her to shift her body minutely under his boot heel. With a deep breath, she threw all her strength into pulling his boot down, at the same time jamming her own heel as hard as she could into his crotch.

She heard the wind leave his body in a choking splutter, and he dropped his katana and crumpled down on top of her, doubled over and gasping for air. As though some slithering abomination from hell was touching her, she shuddered and scrambled to crawl out from beneath the massive hulk that writhed in agony before her. At last, she broke free and immediately clambered across the ground, reaching for her swords that lay askew in the bed of dead leaves. She lunged for the hilt, gleaming out of the shadows, but fell just short as she felt an iron grip clamp onto her ankle and drag her backward.

"Damn it!" she swore, as she struggled to gain some hold on the slippery leaves beneath her. It was no use—he had her, with one hand holding tight to her ankle and the other gripping the belt around her tunic. Without even a second to hesitate, she drew up her free foot and planted her boot squarely into his face, grinding the heel against what would be his nose and mouth under the mask. He howled and swore, knocking her foot away and grabbing his face. That gave Jyuusan-hime just enough of a chance to jump to her feet and sprint toward her blades, scooping them up on the run and taking off into the trees.

_Damn it! damn it!_ she cursed herself for letting her opponent catch her off guard that way. The fight had taken its toll on her, she realized, wiping blood out of her eye, and she hoped she still had enough strength to complete her strategy.

She kept moving, but cocked an ear to listen for her pursuer. _Surely, he wouldn't give up that easily_, she thought. She slowed and then came to a halt and listened. All she heard was the rustle of the chill wind in the leaves.

"Come on," she muttered through ragged breaths, searching the darkness around her. If he had turned back toward Ensei, she wouldn't be able to outrun him.

_Ensei_. The image of his bloody body, the last sight she had seen before dashing into the forest, churned and twisted her stomach and raised pinpricks on her skin. He had purposely taken that hit to distract her attacker and give her a chance to escape. _Idiot_. She had to get back to him…now. She'd kick his ass if he was dead.

"Fucking bitch!!!" the muffled shriek came from the direction where Jyuusan-hime had left her opponent.

"Yes!" she sighed in relief, clutching her swords and waiting, her muscles wound tight, her second wind pulsing through her body, energy crackling along her spine. "Come on…just a little further."

"You're dead!" the assassin screamed at her. "You're DEAD!" A tall bush collapsed and the assassin emerged from behind it, hacking at it with his katana. His black mask had been removed and replaced by a coating of blood that gushed from his nose and mouth.

"Kiss my ass…if you can catch it!" Jyuusan-hime called to him, goading him into a fury, and took off running again. She veered to the east, letting her instincts guide her through the pitch dark.

_This is my home. I don't need to see. I know this land like my own face, _she repeated the words in barely a whisper, like some mystical incantation. It was true. She had spent the last five years alone, freely roaming over this land, facing its challenges and discovering its beauty. The land, the wilderness, the sky and earth were the friends that she trusted, the family that consoled her loneliness and the spirit that gave her strength. They would not let her down now.

_There!_ she gasped in relief and stumbled through the trees to the spot where she would make her stand.

She skidded to a stop and spun around to face her fast-approaching opponent. As he drew closer, he seemed to grow larger and larger, and she drew a long, deep breath as though it was her last. He slashed his katana at her and she bobbed backwards a short step to avoid the cut. She planted her left foot behind her in the dirt and crouched to maximize her balance, just as Jin and Shuuei had taught her again and again.

_This is it_, she thought calmly, and thrust her blades forward, crossing them to create a shield in front of her to meet her enemy's advancing blow. Sparks flew as steel met steel, and the blades cried out against each other. Her attacker began to force his body weight down on the blades, and Jyuusan-hime's feet slid across the dirt under the pressure.

"They said…you'd put up a good…fight, but you're…nothing but a little…whore!" he mocked her, yet the strain in his voice revealed the effort he needed to maintain his advantage.

_Come on…a little more,_ her thoughts willed him to move into her trap. The muscles in her arms, shoulders and back began to quiver under the sustained pressure, as the locked swords inched closer to her face. _Just a little more._

"Heh-heh, that's right…squirm under me, bitch. It makes me hard," he sneered at her and shoved down forcefully on the blades, pressing his body over her. Her bracing knee bent under his weight, and she could smell his rancid breath as he leaned down close to her face. He whispered hoarsely against her cheek, "I'll bet you taste good dead."

"Taste this," she groaned under the force of his weight before falling backward, somersaulting on the ground and watching her opponent stumble forward. The momentum of his off-balance stance thrust him off kilter enough to give Jyuusan-hime the leverage she needed. In the moonlight, she could just make out the look of bewilderment on his face, as she swept her leg against his shins, knocking his unstable feet out from under him. His body lurched forward through the air, grazing the tops of two low bushes that concealed the edge of a cliff, towering over a ravine at least a hundred feet below. He fell silently, and the only sound she heard was his body breaking on the rocks far below.

Jyuusan-hime let out her breath and collapsed on the ground, gasping for air and gleeful that her battle was finally over. He was not the first man she'd killed, but every time it happened, she always hoped it would be the last. In any case, she could not regret being the one alive.

_Ensei._

She clambered to her feet and sprinted back through the trees. She headed to the spot where she had last heard Ensei in a pitched battle among three foes of equal size to the one she had just defeated.

_Be alive, be alive_, she chanted again and again, as she skipped over tangled tree roots and under low-hanging branches. Visions burst across her mind, bloody, broken, breathless, and she shook her head. _Be alive, be alive._

She arrived on the scene where she had left him and found five dead bodies strewn on the ground, none of them Ensei. That left two assassins unaccounted for, not including the one she'd defeated. She spun in every direction, looking for some sign of what had happened. She thought to call out, but stopped before she revealed her own location. Enemies might still be lurking in the shadows, and she couldn't help Ensei if she was dead. _Just be alive._

Catching a glimpse of trampled underbrush and a trail of blood, she raced off in that direction, hoping it would lead her to him. She was certain that if he had been able to, he would have come after her, too. But he hadn't come. _Be alive._

Her foot hooked on what she thought was a twisted tree root and she fell hard on the ground, her swords jarring from her hands. She grimaced and pulled herself up, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of a dead, masked man lying beneath her. She scuttled backwards away from him in horror before it registered that this was assassin number 6. One left and Ensei. _You're alive!_

Tears of relief flooded her eyes, and she sputtered and coughed as giddy laughter fought against every choked breath. She understood as plainly as anything she knew that there was no way Ensei would beat six assassins and lose to the last one. No way.

But she needed to find him, to be sure. She needed to see him, to touch him, to feel his heart beat and his breath heave in his chest.

She dragged herself up to her feet again, grabbed her heavy swords and stumbled into the darkness, sporadically punctuated by fading, ghostly moonlight. Her leaden body moved in slow, awkward motion and her lungs could hold little more than shallow breaths. Pain from the wounds on her face and somewhere low on her back and side throbbed and radiated through her body with every jarring step. A vague, incoherent thought wavered through her limp consciousness that if another assassin came at her now, she would be finished. She had nothing left. She could barely lift the tips of her swords out of the dirt. Her knees wobbled and every muscle in her body quivered in pitiful supplication to be allowed to rest. Still, she refused to surrender to her weakness. Not this time. She would rather die.

_Snap-crack!_

The sound was clear and plain behind her. A rear attack, her muddled mind decided, and she hoisted her swords up to knee height and they wavered weakly, tugging her hands downward. She staggered sideways as she turned toward the sound. She would die fighting. _Right, Jin?_

"Kotori-san…" the hushed word flew on breathless wings across the open air between them.

She stood still, bewildered by the shadowy hulk lurching toward her. She knew there was something she was supposed to do. She had swords in her hands, didn't she? She should kill this thing, but she couldn't. He was holding her too tight for her to move. His voice muttering against her ear in a rush of words and laughter, though annoying, seemed to pose no threat. His arms were strong and warm and she could feel his steady heart thrumming against her cheek where it rested on his chest. His slow deep breaths lulled her until her own breathing calmed. _Ensei._

She began to cry and her knees buckled, her body slumping against him. Her swords fell to the ground with a thud. Relief swept through her like a rushing river, carrying away the last of her determination.

"Oi, Kotori-san!" he exclaimed against her cheek and eased her to the ground, still holding her against him.

"Ensei…" she muttered. A weary hand stole up to his bruised cheek, her fingers trembling over the scar under his swollen left eye. "You're alive."

"Mostly," he grinned at her. He brushed her matted black hair from her face and examined a gash trickling blood down her cheek. "How about you?" he asked. She took in the stormy expression that clouded his eyes as his fingers fumbled at the shredded fabric of her tunic.

She nodded and smiled weakly, tears flowing freely down her face. She tugged feebly at his bloodied shirt, her lips parted as if to speak. He leaned down, turning his head so he could hear her, but her fingertips brushed across his chin, nudging it toward her. His curious eyes found hers, and with the last of her strength, she leaned up and pressed her trembling mouth hungrily against his. Soothing, buoyant warmth flowed from where their lips met down through her body. She tasted his blood and breath and sighed with satisfaction.

"You're alive," she whispered against his mouth before exhaustion swept her into the shadows.


	5. What Dreams May Come

**Author's Note: This story is being written as part of the LJ Saiun_Challenge fanfic community, so sometimes the requirements vary. It follows a particular theme or prompt assigned as that week's or month's challenge. This chapter came from the fic prompt "possibilities" and was limited to 300 words or less, so that's why it's sort of a drive-by. Murderously compact. Still, fun things often come in small packages. At least I hope so. Thanks for reading and commenting.**

_"Hotaru, will you marry me?" Jin hugged Jyuusan-hime and asked again, trying for a better answer._

_"Maybe," she teased, her answer always the same. "Unless I find a better man."_

_"Won't happen," he captured her mouth in a possessive kiss. _

_When she smiled up at the man she loved, eyes bluer than indigo glimmered back._

_"Kotori," Ensei whispered, his lips brushing slowly across her cheek. Her fingers slipped beneath his shirt._

_"Kiss me…Ensei…"_

_When she felt his warm breath curl against her mouth, her lips parted, hungry for--- _

_ENSEI?! _

Shock forced Jyuusan-hime's eyes open, tearing her from the scandalous visions of her dream. In their place stormed a jarring pain that drove her to clutch at the arms encircling her.

"Easy now," Ensei murmured, tightening his hold on her. "I'm here."

Pain throbbed in her head, recalling the assassins' attack and her collapse into Ensei's arms afterward. Color rushed into her cheeks. Despite his own injuries, he'd watched over her all night.

"You're hurt!" she started, fumbling at his blood-stained shirt to check his wound.

He stilled her hands, holding them gently in his.

"Aaah, Kotori-san is worried about me," he sighed wistfully. "Luck-y!"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not worried about you," she blushed furiously, crawling off his lap. "I'm worried about our mission."

"You're right. We'd better get going," he agreed reluctantly and climbed to his feet with a painful groan. "Unless you want to finish that dream first."

She froze at his words. "What dream?" she asked, her voice cracking.

A sly grin crept across his face, mischief dancing in his dangerous eyes. "I'll never tell."

She watched, dumbfounded, as he limped back toward camp leaning on his staff and whistling one of his annoying tunes.

"Damn!" She'd never realized before that she talked in her sleep.


	6. Bound in Blood

A bloody sunrise clawed away night's shadows, warning of a storm gathering from the west. The air hung heavy with moisture and the rosy glow of the ominous morning bathed everything in a harsh red hue.

Jyuusan-hime trudged back into camp, muscles aching from sleeping all night on the cold forest ground where she'd passed out after the previous night's battle. She barely noticed Ensei leaning on his staff scanning the sky and headed straight for her bedroll.

"I hate to say this, Kotori-san," Ensei sighed, studying the oppressive heavens. "We'd better find shelter pretty quick."

Her shoulders sagged. She had just knelt down on her bed, ready to catch at least a few minutes of _dreamless_ sleep, when his words stopped her short.

"Let me guess," she peered up at fists of clouds crashing together above their heads.

He smiled at her wearily, scratching his cheek. "Heh-heh, just our luck, eh?"

She sighed and climbed back to her feet. "How long before it hits?"

"Maybe long enough to clean up and pack," he shrugged and tugged on the filthy, blood-stained shirt that stuck to his skin.

Reluctantly, she nodded and moved toward her gear, but her eyes shifted back to Ensei. Her gaze flickered over his battered, exhausted body, locking on the garish blood stain that discolored a wide section on the front of his torn shirt. She swallowed the tightness in her throat and felt a shudder roll down her body and lodge in a knot in her stomach.

Last night, after they'd defeated the Hyou assassins sent to stop them from reaching Ran Province, Ensei's cuts and bruises looked like mere shadows in the darkness. She'd felt his heart beat against her chest and his breath fan across her lips, and she knew he was safe. She knew she could give in to her exhaustion. Now, under the pitiless morning light, she clearly understood the price he'd paid to guarantee their victory and to protect her while she slept.

Old, familiar anxieties burned like acid in her throat. She clenched her hands into fists to steady their shaking. Long-rehearsed, persistent words of guilt and blame jostled their way into her mind. She clenched her eyes shut, forcing back images of Jin's bloody, scarred face—a memory that had haunted her since her childhood. Every drop of his lost blood had been shed to protect her, and the shame of it stained her soul like a sin.

Some part of her understood the irrationality of believing that somehow she brought suffering to those close to her. Yet, here Ensei stood as another proof—or actually sat---on a low rock across from her, pouring water from a canteen over a long, diagonal laceration cutting across his now bare chest.

"Hoo, that smarts!" he complained to himself with a hiss slipping through gritted teeth, as he washed away the dried blood that streaked down his chest.

A gasp from Jyuusan-hime brought his eyes up to her anxious face.

"Eh, it's just a big scratch," he grinned at her. "It's not even bleeding anymore."

She turned away, her heart thudding wildly, and quickly dug out a black drawstring pouch from her stash of gear.

She crossed the camp and stood in front of Ensei, drawing his curious eyes up to her.

"I…I have some medicine…if you like," she offered and held the pouch up expectantly.

"Ah, thanks," he reached for the pouch, but she pulled it back.

"I'll do it," she offered with a casual shrug and knelt on the ground in front of him.

"Eh, no, Kotori-san, you shouldn't…I can do it," he answered, pressing his hand over the wound on his chest to shield it from her view.

She hesitated for a moment and then drew his hand away, ignoring his frustrated groan. The gash cut across his chest from just below his left shoulder to just under his right ribcage. His skin had been torn raggedly, and though the cut was indeed shallow and no longer bled, its edges flared an angry red. It gaped wide enough across his ribs that a serious infection was not only possible, but likely if the wound weren't treated and dressed immediately. She cringed at the guilty realization that it should have been treated the night before when he'd stayed in the forest beside her unconscious body.

Ensei mistook her pained expression for revulsion and tipped her chin up so she wasn't looking at the wound. "That's not for a princess's eyes to see," he told her in a soothing voice, a soft smile touching his lips.

"I've seen worse," she replied and her sad eyes met his. "I can help. I...want to help."

His eyebrows drew together slightly and her cheeks heated as he studied her face for two seconds longer than she could bear.

"Ok, thanks then," he said and released her chin. He sat up straighter, crossing his legs on the ground in front of him, dropping his hands loosely in his lap.

Jyuusan-hime couldn't contain her relieved smile at having some useful purpose, to be the savior instead of the saved for once. On the ground between them, she eagerly emptied the contents of the pouch, which contained an array of medical items. She deftly mixed together some ground herbs with water in a shallow stoneware cup, blending it into a thick, pale green paste.

"Am I…gonna have to swallow that?" Ensei asked, scowling at the offensive-looking green goop.

"Oh, don't tell me we've discovered the one item in the universe you won't eat!" she teased. "No, this is an herbal treatment to keep wounds from festering. My brother, Ryuuren, taught me how to make it when we were children. You can only get these special herbs in Ran Province."

"Ah, Ryuuren-dono taught you, huh?" he eyed the substance even more warily now.

"Coward," she glanced up at him briefly, a grin teasing her lips. She dipped her hand in the earthy-smelling ointment and leaned closer, but unexpected awkwardness stalled her fingers just above his skin. Her eyes skimmed over the well-defined muscles of his chest, bruised and tattooed with the pale welts of old scars. She swallowed nervously when her eyes followed the faint shadow of dark hair at the center of his chest that arrowed downward toward the wound.

"Eh, Kotori-san, it's all right if you want to stop," he said, noticing her hesitation.

Her cheeks burned. "It's fine," she replied a little too quickly and grimaced at the sharp pitch of her voice. She shoved the fog of…whatever that was…out of her mind, firmly focusing instead on the battlefield wound treatment she'd learned in her Shiba Clan battle training.

"Ow," he whined and flinched at her first touch.

"Sometimes it stings a little," she explained. She applied two more strokes of the stuff and he groaned and winced. She glared at him.

"It hurts!" he complained.

"Honestly," she muttered impatiently and leaned closer to blow a cooling breath on the wet, tender skin around his wound. His quick intake of breath and the goose bumps rising on his skin made her eyes widen with surprise. Intrigued, she leaned in closer, pursing her lips to blow again, when he put his hands up in front of her.

"Uh…ha-ha…ok, thanks…I think I'd better do the rest," he stammered and grabbed for the cup of ointment.

She stared after him in confusion, pulling the cup away. "Sit still and don't be such a baby. Goodness, you're a lot of trouble," she complained.

"Er…well…uh…sorry," he mumbled and drew a deep breath.

She resumed painting the herbal potion down along the cut in short, light strokes, watching with fascination as his muscles tensed under her touch. She glanced up to read his face, but his eyes were closed, exhaustion etched in the dark circles under his eyes. Now, it was her turn to feel contrite.

"You _are_ a lot of trouble, but you were also quite brave last night," she conceded quietly. "I haven't thanked you for…for everything." Absently, she stroked her thumb across his stomach to clean off a little of the ointment that had dripped from her hand. "You're a…a very good man, Ensei."

"Uh…Kotori-san…" he gripped her wrist firmly and moved her hand away. "That's enough."

Her eyes locked on his in surprise at the hard tone in his normally playful voice. His dark blue eyes glinted even darker as he looked down at her, his mouth a flat, firm line. His eyebrows drew down in a scowl. He looked angry. Had she hurt him? she wondered. He'd certainly complained enough. Had he only tolerated her clumsy, well-intentioned efforts until he couldn't bear it anymore? Humiliation churned in her stomach and bubbled up in hurt and anger.

"I guess if you don't like the consequences, you shouldn't have let that guy do this to you," she lashed out at him.

"So he got lucky," he shrugged indifferently. He took the cup of ointment from her hand to finish pasting the green substance over his wound.

"You did it on purpose so I could get away," she accused. She waited for his response, watching his hand moving over his chest. Momentarily, an image flashed through her mind of her own hand pressed under his as it guided her touch against his skin. Shock jolted the breath from her lungs. Her thoughts swirled in a pit of confusion, trapped and winding endlessly around the tension spilling down the iron rod of her back.

"Don't do it again," she warned in a threatening tone, gripping his arm to draw his attention to her. He stared at her, obviously taken aback. Her grip slackened, but her hand remained resting on his arm.

"Promise me…" she urged. "Promise me you won't put yourself in danger for me again."

He studied her for a moment in silence and then answered, "Ok…I'll promise if you will."

She stared into his eyes, his sharp gaze challenging her.

"Will _you_ promise _me_, Kotori-san?" he asked evenly, lightly folding her fingers in his, brushing away the drying green paste around her knuckles in a possessive and intimate touch. "If an assassin twice your size comes out of the shadows again, will you promise me to stay out of danger and let me handle it?"

She couldn't, wouldn't answer him for several seconds. She struggled against the only answer she could give, but surrendered to his fingers sliding loosely, soothingly against hers, his touch dancing over her wrist.

At last, she shook her head slowly. "I can't promise that."

"Ok, then we understand each other," he stated, the stormy clouds overhead reflecting in his clear blue eyes. His long fingers closed around hers, her small hand disappearing inside his large one. "How about this?" he offered, "I'll let you protect me if you'll let me protect you. Between us, we should be able to keep each other alive."

She rolled the words over in her mind…_keep each other alive_. With effort, she drew her hand away from his and picked up a roll of bandage.

"Lift your arms," she stammered, her voice softer now, uncertain.

He followed her directions, but braced his heavy, thick forearms on her shoulders, halting her for several seconds. She jostled her thoughts and emotions into some kind of jagged line and pushed herself to continue, leaning into him and unrolling the bandage along his skin. She reached her arms around him as the bandage encircled him, inching awkwardly closer to him, until her cheek pressed against his chest. Her whole body burned with embarrassment and a feeling like fireflies humming in her stomach.

The accidental embrace was not lost on either of them, as their quick breaths and thumping hearts pressed together made clear. A sigh from deep in his chest reverberated against her cheek and called to something quivering inside her. She hurriedly, clumsily leaned back away from him bringing the bandage roll around to the front, stretching it across him to cover his wound. Their eyes met for an agonizing, awkward moment before she dropped her gaze back to her hands and Ensei looked up at the darkening clouds overhead.

She drew a deep, ragged breath and closed her eyes as she leaned into him again, the soft hair on his chest tickling her cheek. Resisting and surrendering all at once, she turned her face toward him, her lips a breath away from his skin.

"Ensei," she said softly, hovering close to him, soothed by the warmth of his body surrounding her. "Someone…dear to me…gave his life to protect me," she stammered out her confession, the words choking in her throat. Shame stained her cheeks and she quickly resumed wrapping the bandage with unsteady fingers.

She felt his hand tighten on her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. "I'm sorry to hear that. That's a heavy burden for a little bird."

"It's too heavy…it's crushing," she choked out the last word, her head bowed, the bandages clenched in her fists.

Her shoulders shuddered with the strain of withholding her grief, until she felt herself drawn in to the solid strength and warmth of Ensei's bandaged chest. She gasped and stiffened for a moment, but the unexpected relief that surged from every pore of her body overwhelmed her resistance, and she slumped against him, pent up tears spilling over.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled with a weak laugh, utterly mortified. "I'm…" she shook her head and drew her sleeve across her face.

"You're supposed to mourn the loss of an important person. There's no shame in that," he said, his words muffled in her hair. "Tears make the river that carries the dead to heaven. One day, you stop crying, and that's when you know they made it."

She smiled bitterly. "I guess he never made it, then."

"Did you send him to heaven with your prayers?" he asked, his words vibrating against her ear where she pressed against him. "Have you lived well with the life he protected?"

She shook her head in mute response to his questions.

"Ah, then you cry because you broke your bond," he looked down at her sympathetically and brushed a teardrop from her cheek.

"What do you mean? What bond?" she sniffled, shoving the pain down back into the dark corners of her heart.

"Your blood bond," he answered and picked up a piece of bandage to dry her cheeks and pinch over her red, runny nose, making her blush profusely. "It's sort of an unspoken promise between warriors to watch over each other on the battlefield," he explained. "If one dies in battle, the other is responsible for laying him to rest and living on in his place."

"Living on?" she stared at him incredulously.

"Do you think your life was protected, so you could waste it in tears?" he asked in a gentle voice, though his words were harsh. "We mourn the dead, Kotori-san, not the living. You don't get to cry for yourself. You have another chance to live."

Her eyes widened as understanding unfolded across her heart.

He rested his hand on top of her head and smiled sadly at her. "He gave his life to protect yours because he wanted you to live. You have to learn to smile again or you dishonor your blood bond."

Her eyes shot up and locked on his clear, steady gaze. "You're a little too honest, aren't you?" she sniffled.

He ruffled her hair and grinned at her with confidence. "Kotori-san is a strong woman," he stated. "Strong enough to die for others, so strong enough to live, too."

"Strong? Me?" she laughed a little in derision.

"Uh…I know it was dark, but the woman standing between me and a bloodthirsty killer last night looked a lot like you," he replied, scratching his head.

"But…that was…" she hesitated, her face reddening, her words stalling in her throat.

"Heroic," he finished for her. "You could have been killed."

"You too!" she exclaimed anxiously and her gaze flickered down to his chest. Her breath hitched when his fingers tipped her chin upwards, so her eyes focused on his.

"You risked your life to give me a chance. This was my answer." He pressed his hand to the bandages on his chest. "That makes a blood bond between us."

She looked up at him with eyes like saucers full of a magical potion, reflecting every thought swirling in her jumbled mind and heart. She felt as though she swam in the azure eyes smiling at her, calming the turbulent sea of doubts that had tossed her all her life.

She didn't move, couldn't breath, when his thumb crept along the curve of her bottom lip. Her lips parted in a sigh and she saw the gentle glint in his eyes change to something else, darker, hungrier. Her eyes drifted down to settle on his mouth, his easy grin slowly fading. Falling, tumbling, plummeting through the breathless moment, she was aware of nothing but the sound of a nearly inaudible groan deep in his throat and the subtle, tender, overpowering pressure of his touch tilting her chin upwards.

Large droplets of rain spattered her cheeks and pelted against his shoulders, and he winced and released her, scowling up at the swollen, dark clouds intruding overhead.

"Ah, here it comes sooner than I thought," Ensei sighed and groaned as he got to his feet, tucking the end of the bandage around his chest. She heard him breathe deeply as he turned his face up to the rapidly increasing downpour.

Wide-eyed, her tumultuous emotions crashing like the thunderous clouds overhead, she focused her gaze on the ground, quickly gathering the contents of her medical kit. She paused when she picked up the cup of green ointment and recognized that her insides felt about the same gooey consistency.

Yet, something else simmered behind the tempest of sensations jolting her in every direction, waiting for the clouds to pass. Breathless with anticipation, she felt the first rays of happiness shimmering through the cracks in her patchwork heart. _Happiness_, she beamed even thinking the word and lifted her eyes up to see Ensei smiling impishly down at her.

"Ready?" he asked, bending toward her a little and holding his hand out to her.

_Strong enough to live, _his words rolled over her like sunshine_._

"I'm ready," she answered, and drew a deep breath and laid her hand in his.


	7. Storm Warnings

Note: This story so far has been written through fanfic prompts at the Saiun_Challenge LJ Community. The mod gives a prompt, and the writer uses the prompt in a story. The prompts were Ch 1: Faith, Ch 2: Hope, Ch 3: Imprisonment, Ch 4: Shadow, Ch 5: Possibilities, Ch 6: Blood Ties and Ch 7: Lightning. This chapter will be the last chapter of this story I'll do using prompts, and I'll just go on with the story on my own—faster that way. The prompt thing was fun though, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to challenge their limberness as a writer. It certainly gets one's creativity flowing, and I plan to play on there, just not with this story. What does this mean to you, Dear Reader? Faster chapter updates! So on with the show and thanks for reading and commenting.

Reminder cuz someone asked: "Kotori" means "Little Bird" Ensei's nickname for Jyuusan-hime, derived from her size and speed. Plays off the "Hotaru = Firefly" nick Jin gave her, for purposes of drawing parallels between characters.

* * *

Between Shi and Ran Provinces, the sprawling Ganryuu Mountain Range offered both haven and hazard to travelers who dared to challenge its terrain. However, unlike most that passed this way, Jyuusan-hime knew how to find one and avoid the other among the mountain's jagged cliffs and plunging lakes.

Despite the torrential thunderstorm that had hummed in the air and hammered the earth since they'd set out that morning, she had guided Ensei and their horses up a nearly vertical climb to a hidden cave carved out of the mountainside. Confident in the sanctuary that offered shelter from both the elements and their enemies, Jyuusan-hime leaned against the cave's entrance and filled her lungs with heavy, wet air. Quietly, she watched the dark, uneasy sky sizzle with friction, punctuated by the crack and rumble of rolling thunder.

Between thunder claps, she heard Ensei's deep, soft snores behind her, muffled by the rain. She wondered how he could sleep through nature's tantrum, but she was glad that he finally did. He'd earned a rest, she smiled wistfully, glancing over her shoulder at his hulking form huddled on the ground by the fire.

Which is not to say he'd willingly surrendered to the sleep he so desperately needed. As Jyuusan-hime had feared, the wound on his chest had developed an infection, provoked by the fact that Ensei hadn't slept or eaten a decent meal in more than 24 hours. As a result, exhaustion and fever had reduced him to a shadow of his normal energetic self. Despite all that, he had still put up a good fight over which of them would secure the horses and gather firewood once they'd made it to their new refuge in the cave. Though concerned about the infection worsening, Jyuusan-hime had confidence in the medicine she'd applied to Ensei's wounds, but he had to give it a chance to work.

In the end, after a few heated exchanges, sheepish truces and stubborn silences between them, Jyuusan-hime had prevailed. She had only to threaten starving his fever, as the old adage advised, and he grumbled and settled himself by the fire. When she rewarded him with a bundle of snacks Shuurei had packed especially for him, he practically swooned and dug noisily into the food. She grinned to herself, imagining Ensei as some kind of weird, lumbering, shaggy-haired dog. It was hard not to like the guy.

Watching the stormy wind tumble leaves across the ground in front of the cave, she wondered at how their relationship had also shifted, literally overnight. Desperation had a way of crystallizing things, she thought with a wry grin. Facing death, and more pointedly, facing the possibility that Ensei might have died during their battle with the assassins, she glimpsed the bond that had begun to form between them without her even realizing it.

She'd given up pretending to herself that she wasn't attracted to him. After all, she'd practically thrown herself at him in the guise of tending his injuries that morning. She had considered that her interest in Ensei might stem from his similarities to Jin. Maybe he was just a close enough replacement. She still wasn't sure.

It didn't really matter anyway. Nothing was going to come of it, so she didn't have to worry. She had already traded away her future and now she was promised to the emperor. She also suspected that Shuurei and Ensei had strong feelings for each other. She hadn't known them long enough to tell, but they certainly spent a lot of time together. No, she had nothing to fear, or desire, from Ensei.

Goodness knew, she'd tried pissing him off to push him away, even tried drowning him, she grimaced sheepishly. The harder she tried to hold him back, the more he seeped into her skin. He was an odd collision of traits, all tangled up together to produce a wise old man with a child's spirit in a body built like a mountain. It felt nice to be with him. It felt good to be his friend. It felt alive.

A smile perched on her lips. Something inside her was changing, she realized, as though the storm was blowing away a lifetime of useless debris that had piled up while her soul sat waiting in one place. It was on the move now, awake, a hunter, hungry and impatient. Energy snapped like a whip across her body, and she fidgeted, shifting from one foot to the other, rubbing her hands absently over her arms.

Her skin hummed as though the lightning crackling outside danced between her flesh and the fabric of the loose-fitting tunic she had changed into when she'd come in from the rain. She shivered, partly from the droplets of rain still trickling from her hair, partly from the way her clothing skimmed along her arms and draped from her shoulders, breasts and hips. She was keenly, sharply aware of every movement of the fabric against her skin. She felt as light as gossamer fluttering in the chill wind.

"You're gonna catch cold like that," Ensei said from behind her and dropped a blanket around her shoulders. She gasped and flinched and jerked out of the blanket, whirling around toward him.

"Whoa!" he chuckled weakly at her stunned reaction. "Sorry…"

"Uh…no, it's ok…" she answered with a breathless laugh. "I thought you were still sleeping. I was just daydreaming."

"Ya, it's that kind of day," he nodded, his cheeks still a feverish pink, though the rest had obviously done him good. He reached around her to replace the blanket on her shoulders, pulling it tight under her chin, drawing her slightly toward him. The heat still lingering in the blanket's folds told her it must have been the blanket he'd wrapped around himself while he slept.

She smiled kindly at him. Her intended casual words stalled in her throat as the warmth of the blanket enveloped her.

"Your hair's still dripping," he observed with a frown and brushed a rivulet of rain water from her cheek with his knuckles.

"Oh…uh…tha.." was all she could mutter before he reached out and drew the combs and ties from her hair, letting her wet, raven locks tumble down loosely around her face. She stared up at him, speechless, breathless. Silence hung between them for several seconds, disturbed only by the torrent of rain splattering on the rocks outside and the thunder echoing the rumble in her heart.

"Tch, Kotori-san, you're supposed to be smarter than me. We can't both get sick," he teased her and tugged up the edge of the blanket to pat against her wet neck. Her stunned gaze lowered from his face to her eye level, only to hang up on the loosened ties on the front of his shirt, revealing just a hint of the dark hair that shadowed his chest underneath. She remembered how soft it felt and swallowed the air caught in her throat.

Suddenly, her riveted view was obscured when he hauled the blanket up over her head and rubbed it's rough fabric briskly through her tangled, soaking mane, careful to avoid the cut above her eye from the previous night's battle.

"Ensei…" she had begun to protest, her voice muffled under the blanket.

"Hm, I didn't know you had such long hair," he remarked, stroking the blanket all the way down the length of her tangled tresses.

His hot hand circled around the back of her neck as he braced her while he squeezed the rain out of fistfuls of the heavy dark strands. Her shoulders shot up stiffly reacting to the surge of heat from his touch. She could feel his fingers raking her scalp through the blanket, and the release of tension shivered down the back of her neck and across her shoulders.

"Nnn…" she sighed reflexively under his muted touch, shocked by the sultry sound purring in her throat.

He grinned down at her, pulling the damp blanket around her shoulders again, and ruffled his hand in her hair to see if he'd gotten most of the moisture out. Black waves bounced up, free of the water's weight, curling under her chin and spilling over her shoulders.

"That's better," he mumbled and arranged her glossy black locks over her shoulders, smirking as the ends curled around his thick fingers, clinging to him.

"I think I'm your prisoner," he joked, trying to gently disentangle his fingers from her hair, only to have small wisps, charged by the electricity in the air, grasp his wrists and palms.

Her half-lidded, drowsy eyes drifted to his dark blue ones that reflected the shimmering downpour outside.

"You look like you're about 12 years old, Sleepyhead," he smiled at her with a teasing grin. He playfully tugged on one of the damp ringlets of her hair, letting it spring from his grip and fall against her neck. He plucked the curl up again, and his rough, hot fingers grazed against her throat, sending shivers of heat cascading down her body.

"Just because I'm little, it doesn't mean I'm a little girl," she warned him, a bit breathless, a blush rising to her cheeks, making her look even younger.

His brows drew together slightly before a smirk lifted the corner of his mouth and the devil danced in the rain in his eyes. He braced his hand against the arched cave opening just behind her, his other fist perched on his hip, and leaned down so his eyes were level with hers.

"You don't scare me, little bird," he replied with a mischievous grin. "Not even a little."

His eyes, dark and sharper than any blade, met hers squarely. These were the eyes of a feral animal that ate life, the poison and the pleasure both, and turned it all into iron endurance. Adversity made him stronger. Nothing would beat him. Not a fever, not an assassin, not her.

The power in his body and the certainty in his eyes intoxicated her, made her reckless, made her think about the way his skin felt when she'd treated his wounds. Her fingers tingled even now with the velvet warmth she remembered, alive and pulsing under her touch. The same prickling sensation danced over her lips and she pressed them together, trapping a sigh, as her eyes traveled down his neck to the dip at the base of his throat.

Mesmerized, she shifted toward him, drawn, unthinking, hungry, thirsty, aching, alive.

He chuckled and smiled his usual big, dopey grin, ruffled her damp hair playfully and headed back to the fire.

He might as well have slapped her.

She drew in a ragged, calming breath and willed her pulse to steady. She pulled the blanket tighter around her like armor, as her bones recovered some of their rigidity. Her stomach churned and her thoughts raged like the tempest outside, crackling and chaotic.

What in the _hell_ was she doing? How could she have lost herself that way? Was she so desperate for a little affection that she could be so easily wrapped around someone else's finger…literally?!

She could NOT, NOT allow anything like that to happen again, she chastised herself. It would be a disastrous complication. They'd finally reached a companionable peace between them, and she determined it would stay that way. She wasn't about to jeopardize their mission, and she certainly wasn't about to let anyone have that kind of power over her. No man ever had. Not her brothers. Not Jin. Not even the ghost of Jin.

Besides, Ensei obviously didn't see her that way. _Not even a little_, she smirked bitterly at his words and her cheeks burned. Was he _that_ clueless or just playing dumb? Either way, it turned out as it should have, as it had to, all for the best.

_Whew, that was close_, she sighed. She turned toward the cave's opening and closed her eyes, leaning out a little to let the cool rain's bracing drops mist over her heated face. She licked the sweet raindrops from her lips.

_Ha, I want to kiss him_.


	8. Inner Ensei

Note: What goes on in the mind's of men? Ah, the eternal, unanswerable, unfathomable question. Just for fun, let's visit with Inner Ensei to see what he thinks of what's going on. I wrote this as dialogue only, so it might be a little tricky to read. Here's the dialogue key: _Italics, no quotes=Ensei's thoughts_; **"Quotes with bold type=Ensei speaking";** "Quotes without bold type=Jyuusan-hime speaking." Reminder note: "Kotori" means "Little Bird," which is Ensei's nick for Jyuusan-hime for her size and speed. Thanks for reading and commenting.

* * *

_Ugh. What did I do now? Is she mad at me again?_

"What are you doing?"

**"Uh…getting some water…"**

"Sit…I'll get it. You need to rest. The sooner you get better, the sooner we can get out of here. That won't be too soon for me. Here."

**"Thanks. Sorry to trouble you."**

_Erk…what kind of look was that? Good thing her weapons aren't handy. Yeah, she's definitely mad at me again. _

_Ah, the water's cold. Good. I can't believe I'm sick. When was the last time? But I have a pretty good doctor. Heh-heh. Ooh, she caught that smirk. Where are her weapons?_

_Maybe I should just apologize. But for what? Nah, she's smart. She won't fall for it. She'll know I'm just doing it to cool her down and that'll make things worse. Haaah._

"Something wrong, Ensei?"

_She looks worried about me. And mad at me. Is that possible? _

**"Ha-ha, not a thing, Kotori-san, thanks for asking."**

"I really wish you'd stop calling me that."

_She only says that when she's royally pissed._

"Are you hungry?"

**"Uh…"**

"Of course you are."

_Was that a smile? It might have been a snarl. _

_Nah, she smiled. She rolled her eyes, but she definitely smiled. Whew. Maybe this'll blow over quickly. I hope so. I don't like to make her mad, though I seem pretty good at it. I sure have a way with women. Maybe Hime-san's the only one that can tolerate me after all. _

_Kotori-san's a lot like Hime-san. Same temper, same determination. They even look a lot alike. But the longer I'm with Kotori-san, the more I see how she's different. Softer…_

"Did you need something?"

**"Uh…no, nothing."**

"You're staring at me. It's rude."

**"Sorry."**

_Maybe softer's not exactly the right word. Kotori-san's physically tougher than Hime-san, but Hime-san doesn't seem to get lonely. She drives forward into whatever she wants to do, and as long as you're going in her direction, you can go with her. Still, whether you go or not, it won't stop her. But that's all right. So far it's been a lot of fun._

_Kotori-san's different. She needs people. She doesn't want to go it alone. I wonder why she pushes people away so hard. Maybe it's just me. _

_I don't know. She just seems…softer than Hime-san. She'd kick my ass if she knew I thought that. Hime-san would too. Definitely softer…touchable…_

"You're doing it again."

**"Uh…ha-ha…I was just wondering how you make that."**

"Stew?"

**"Uh…yeah."**

"You taught me on our first day on the road."

**"Ooooh, ha-ha-ha, that's what you're making? Ah."**

_Erk…_

"Am I doing it wrong?"

_Uh-oh._

**"No, no…it's fine…"**

"I'm doing it exactly the way you showed me."

_Ah, hell._

**"You're doing great, Kotori-san…don't mind me. Must be the fever. And starvation."**

"Hmph."

_Did she smile again? More like a smirk, but I'll take it._

"Something funny?"

**"Huh?"**

"You're smiling about something."

_Oops_.

**"Looking forward to dinner."**

"I'm not that good of a cook. I know more about swords than stoves."

**"Your cooking tastes fine to me."**

"Hmm…I don't know how much of a compliment that is. Still, if you're used to Shuurei-chan's cooking…"

**"Hime-san is a great cook!"**

_Another look_. _What?_

"Well, I guess there are all kinds of useful skills. She's…probably not much with a blade, huh?"

**"Umm…I've only seen her with kitchen knives, but she can be scary."**

_Ah, that's better. I like making her laugh. I'm pretty good at that, too, I guess._

"You seem to know her well. Have you been friends long?"

**"A few years."**

"Ah. Are you betrothed?"

**"HAH?!"**

_Ow, my head!!...shouldn't have sat up that fast…_

"Well, it seems like you two are…you know…a couple."

**"Where'd you get that idea?"**

"From my own eyes and ears. It's kind of obvious."

**"What is?"**

"Well, she thinks the world of you, and you follow her around like a puppy."

**"I do not."**

_Do I_?

"Oh yes you do, and I've only seen you together a couple of times."

**"It's my job to follow her around."**

"Uh-huh."

_It is!_

**"It is!"**

"All right, I believe you."

_Yeah, right. Ok, time to change the subject._

**"Besides, Hime-san's not interested in that kind of thing."**

_Ugh…change…change the subject._

"Oh? I'm sorry."

**"For what?"**

"Unrequited love is painful. You'll meet someone else, I'm sure."

**"HAH?!"**

_What the…?_

"You're a little…rustic…Ensei, but you have some good qualities."

_I do? _

"Here. Eat this while it's hot."

_What qualities?_

"You said you were hungry."

**"Huh?"**

"Food…are you so lovesick you've forgotten food?"

**"I'm not lovesick. Hime-san and I are good friends. I help her out with work. That's all. Thanks for the food."**

"You're welcome."

_Good. Something to do besides talk. _

"I was sure you were the reason she didn't marry the emperor."

_Or let's talk._

**"Mm…uhn-uh…maybe Seiran."**

_Nice. Mumble with your mouth full. 'Rustic,' right?_

"Seiran? That pillar of ice?"

**"He's not so bad."**

"See, that's one of those good qualities of yours."

**"What is?"**

"You're very accepting. Even of someone like Seiran. You're a far better man than he is. Hey, are you all right? Drink some water, for goodness sake!"

_Ow, that hurt…I almost choked…Still, I wish Seiran could've heard that! Hee-hee!_

"And that's one of your bad qualities! You're ravenous! We're you raised by wolves?"

_Sort of._

**"Sorry, Kotori-san. The food's so good, though."**

_Ho-ho! Did I make her blush?_

"I'm sure it's not that good."

_Even redder. Nice!_

**"Mmm…it's delicious! You made something this good over a campfire in a cave. That's impressive!**

_Heh-heh._

"It's just a stew. Uh…nothing, really…I'm, uh, glad you like it."

_Bingo. Cherry red. Heh-heh-heh. Just like her lips._

_Uh..._

"There's…more…would you like seconds?"

_Don't look at her lips. Ah, hell._

**"Love it! Thanks!"**

"Well, it's nice to cook for someone who appreciates it. That's another good quality you have."

_I should write these down._

"A woman doesn't only want good looks, you know, so don't give up hope."

_CRASH!_

"Can I get you anything else?"

**"No thanks."**

_Gah, your sword through my heart would be quicker._

"I mean…well…that's not to say you don't have your appeal."

_Oh, God. Pity. I should check on the horses. And fall off a cliff._

"I mean, you're strong."

_Oh?_

"A lot of women like…big guys."

_Do they now?_

"And…you have…nice eyes."

…

"They're pretty."

_Pretty?_

"Coming from the Ran Clan, I think I've seen every shade of blue in existence, but not the color of your eyes."

_Kotori-san…_

"Hmm…like a lake at twilight. Peaceful, but…wild, too. Like there's so much going on under the surface."

_Ha…_

"Are you even listening to me? Ah, I don't know why I bother."

_Kotori…_

"You must be tired. Even you're not normally _this_ rude."

_Uh…ah…say something…_

**"Sorry."**

_Dumbass._

"Why don't you rest for a bit. I'll make some ginger tea. It's good for fevers. Maybe a little tea will make a new man out of you. I'll tell you when it's ready."

_Haaah, I did it again. I made her mad. I didn't mean to, but how can I tell her that she leaves me tongue-tied? I need a little something stronger than tea, Kotori-san. _

_Hm, she says her tea will make a new man out of me. That would be something. A new man without too many sins to count. A man with clean hands… A man with the right to dream about a woman like her._

_Look at the way she moves. She belongs with a king. I bet she'll look pretty in consort's robes. I bet she's beautiful without them._

_Ah, hell. Keep thinking like that, and you'll really piss her off. _

_She's already had her britches in a twist today as it is. Hmm, ever since I dried her hair earlier. Is she mad because of that? Her hair was wet and her clothes were so thin I could almost…well, she had to be cold. _

_Huh, maybe it was a little pushy. That's what Hime-san's always complaining about. I act before I think. But I did think. I was thinking about her. _

_Maybe I was too rough. She is a little thing. But she's not weak. And I made sure I was gentle. I know how to touch a woman, for God's sake. She didn't act like I'd hurt her. I'd never hurt her. No, I've seen that look on a woman's face before. She looked like she wanted me to…_

_Ah, this fever's got me delirious. Eh, settle down, Ensei. How about a little self-control around a lady? Sheesh. _

_Yeah, it's this fever. And I'm tired. And it's been awhile since my last trip to Kouchou's. Heh, that little red-haired girl that does the… Ahem…that's no excuse. I know better. I'm a little rough around the edges, but I'm not an animal. _

_Still...as it was, I had to walk away from her or something bad might have happened. She'd be more than mad at me, and I'd be pissed at myself. _

_It's getting tougher to walk away, though. It's hard to even take my eyes off her now, though it'll make her mad again. It's the way she moves. Smooth, delicate, like she's dancing, whether she's making tea or locked in battle. _

_And it's her eyes…like a summer sky…the way she looks at me…kinda lonely and…longing. Sad eyes that should smile. _

_And her hair…damn…I could be wrapped up in her hair forever. I thought I was gonna lose it when it kept curling itself around me. It's even softer than I thought it would be. A woman's hair…hair like that…her hair…spilling all over your chest when she cu… unnhhh._

"Ensei! Are you all right?"

_Aw shit!_

"Is it your wound?"

**"No, no! It's nothing."**

_But a raging hard on…shit!_

"Ensei, turn back this way and let me check! Don't be such a baby!"

_Erk! She's touching me…_

**"Ah, no, Kotori-san, honestly…ha-ha-ha…I'm fine… just a little…stiff."**

_Stiff?! _

"Stiff?"

**"Ha-ha-ha…ya…"**

"Do you want me to rub it?"

_God help me. Don't put your hand there. Or there! _

"I know a pressure stroke that really gets in deep. Does it hurt when I do this? Sometimes my grip is a little too tight."

_Uh…one bag of rice costs five ryou. Two bags of rice are 10 ryou…is that right? Uunnhh…Rice is not a turn on, rice is not a turn on. Damn…_

"It's really bad, huh? You must be stiff because you're not getting enough."

**"HAH?!"**

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about. That happens to me too."

_HAH?!_

**"What happens?"**

"I get stiff from not getting enough exercise. For someone like you, it must be hard.

_She's killing me._

"When you feel better, I'll do it with you."

_wha-a-ha-ha…_

**"Do what?"**

"Work out…train… I bet I can wear you down and work out all your kinks. I'm a great partner."

_Just nod. Just nod._

"There's a really nice spot behind the cave with soft grass and a cool waterfall and pond…you just can't help doing it there."

_Mmm…she really does have a tight grip…nnnhhh…_

"When the sun is shining, it's so warm and beautiful.

…_and lightning in her fingertips… _

"I do it there whenever I'm in the area. It's a perfect spot. When you're up to it, we can do it there together."

_Training…She's talking about training…_

"I've never done it with anyone else there, but there's plenty of room, so it should be fine. You can show me yours and I'll show you mine."

_Not what I'm thinking, I'm sure. _

**"My what?"**

"Your techniques. Your fighting drills. Show me how you use your pole. Hey, what's so funny?"

_I'm gonna die._

"Ensei…you're being rude again!"

**"Uh… sorry…sorry…fever…"**

"Hmph."

_Her lips curl up on the edges when she makes that sound. _

_Ha, I want to kiss her._

"OH! The tea is burning."

_Whew!_

"You distracted me, dammit! How can one man be so much trouble?"

_Ah, she's mad at me again._

_But that's ok. I like it. I like everything about her._


	9. Ribbons from Her Hair 1: Rogue Princess

An amused smirk tilted the corner of Ensei's mouth as he glanced up at Jyuusan-hime, fussing over the pot of burnt ginger tea at the fire. He sighed contentedly and looked back down at the delicate sliver of blue ribbon in his fingers, lacing it through the end of a thin stick.

All things considered, he decided, he wouldn't trade places with any man alive. He listened to Jyuusan-hime grumbling, half to herself, half at him, about being distracted, about wasting valuable provisions, and about being a terrible cook. Her melodic chatter played over the sound of the rain outside, now gentled to a soft, steady evening shower, and the quiet crackle of the low flames in the campfire. Every now and then, he would look up to catch Jyuusan-hime's eyes flickering away from him, followed by a rosy glow rising in her cheeks.

_Better than sunrise after a storm_, he mused and went back to the detailed work held lightly in his fingers. _There were worse places a man could be_, he thought and grinned again.

Though he was enjoying the respite from the road, he knew delays from their mission weighed heavily on Jyuusan-hime's mind. He also knew that she needed the break as much as he did. In a way, he was glad they had been forced to take this brief refuge and that it had been her idea. Without the obvious necessity of healing his wound, he would have had his hands full trying to convince her that periodic rest days were as valuable as pressing on at full speed.

Still, her endurance impressed him, nearly matching his own, and the only thing she ever seemed to complain about was him, he admitted with chagrin. She surprised him all the time with what she knew, what she could handle, how fast she learned and how strong she was, both in body and spirit.

Little by little, he came to understand that she carried heavy burdens from her past in her proud and upright gait. She was every inch a Ran, but had not been raised by them. How did the young princess of a noble house come to be raised among the Shiba military clan? She said someone important to her had died protecting her. From what? Who was that person?

She fiercely demanded independence and space, but at the same time, in quieter moments, curled herself close to him in casual companionship. Sometimes her eyes shot daggers at him, meant to drive him away. Yet, then, she would look up at him with a longing that melted his heart. Her personality wove together as intricately and elegantly as the blue silk ribbon in his fingers, and slipped through his grasp just as smoothly.

Ensei had never found women easy to figure. Granted, his limited experience came from whores, barmaids, shop girls and farmers' daughters, most often looking for a husband or at least a steady customer. They knew how to turn a man's head, and well, that was all right at times, even when he realized what they were up to. He'd had few occasions and no reason to consider how one approached a lady of nobility. The thought was laughable.

One thing he did know was that a settled life and a family of his own was not in the cards for him. That decision had been made a long time ago in a pool of blood and a pile of dead bodies at his feet. No, things were as they were supposed to be, and no amount of pretty ribbon or good cooking was going to change that. He was as big a fool for a fairytale as anyone else, and some ladies could spin a fine, fine story. Some…some with raven hair and eyes like a summer sky… made him _want_ to believe…but in the end, things were as they should be.

That was one reason he liked Shuurei so much—she was totally straight forward, an open book. For a guy with limited reading skills when it came to women, that suited him just fine. He didn't have to guess what she wanted. She generally told him in no uncertain terms and took it for granted that she only had to ask. And she was right.

Hime-san was his in a way no other woman had ever been. She leaned on him. She trusted him with her life. When she needed something important, she asked him first—not Seiran, not the emperor, not even her beloved father. He had become her rock, and knowing she accepted him as that kept him going better than her manjuu. Well, almost. He figured Shuurei was as close to family as he was ever going to get, and the way she made him feel was more than he'd hoped for.

He harbored no illusions about her, though. She was a princess through to her bones. She instinctively understood her place, even when she was up to her elbows in a washtub, taking in laundry to make extra money. Even with a sheen of work sweat on her face, she was a princess—aloof, above, apart.

He worried for her future sometimes. Most likely, a political marriage awaited her. Her position in one of the most influential noble families was far too important. She didn't yet realize, as the first-born daughter of the first-born son of the House of Kou, she could be perhaps the most powerful woman in Saiunkoku in her own right, aside from her personal influence over the emperor. Someday, she would figure it out and she would be a force to be reckoned with. What was his place in that scenario? Maybe none. The higher she rose, the more he would stay where he was and the further apart they would drift. _Hime-san…_

"Ah, the tea is a total loss," Jyuusan-hime sighed dejectedly, her sing-song voice intruding on his troubled thoughts. "Hmm…hey, Ensei, can you keep a secret?" she whispered with a mischievous grin, leaning toward him as if there were anyone else to hear.

"A secret?" he repeated, halting his work and grinning at her curiously, dark thoughts swept away by her smile. "Sure."

His eyes followed her quick flutter across the cave to the piles of their gear and watched as she dug through satchels, mumbling to herself. He smirked with amusement watching her crawl on all fours and lean down, tugging at a saddlebag at the bottom of a pile.

"Need some help?" he asked, stifling a chuckle.

"No, no…you rest," she called to him without turning back. He watched a moment more before his conscience nagged him for leering at the indelicate position of her backside, waving in the air in a most fascinating, but un-princess-like manner.

This, he decided, was a princess of a different sort, and his lips turned up in a slow, easy grin. He glanced down at his hands and ran his rough thumb over the smooth silk of the blue ribbon tangled around his fingers.

"Here it is!" she sighed with relief and scampered back to kneel at his side. "Try some of this. It'll help you sleep…better than ginger tea."

She handed him a tightly woven bamboo canteen, and he curiously set down the items in his hands, opened the canteen and sniffed.

"Sake?" he asked, cocking a scandalous eyebrow at her.

"The emperor's best. I stole it from his private storehouse," she confessed and snickered like a mischievous child. "They were going to give us the cheap stuff for the mission—the really _medicinal_ stuff. How's that for thanks."

Ensei laughed out loud until his eyes teared up. "Well, that deserves a toast to your resourcefulness," he stated breathlessly. "To you, my lady, and your rogue's heart." He took a long swig from the canteen, letting his eyes drift shut at the warm, sweet sensation coating his tongue and rolling like honey on fire down his throat.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that she held her hand out for the canteen and smiled boldly at his raised eyebrows.

"It's in my nature as a Ran," she stated proudly as he handed her the canteen. She took a long swallow and moaned rapturously as the sake went down.

Ensei whistled long and low. "Easy there, that's a big mouthful for a little bird," he warned.

"Oh, who appointed you my granny?" she turned her nose up at him.

_The princess_, he assessed her with an indulgent grin.

"I'll have you know I'm an old hand at the fine art of sipping," she tossed a wink at him, before downing another mouthful.

_And the rogue_, he added and his smile grew wider. _My, my…_

"Sipping, huh? Is that so?" he laughed again. "Well, then just keep it to sipping and you should be fine."

"Whatever you say, Granny," she rolled her eyes and took another long, rebellious pull from the canteen's mouth, shooting a provoking sideways glance at him.

_A princess and a rogue, wrapped up in blue ribbons_, he smiled at her and his eyes hung upon a glimmering drop of sake on her cherry lips. _Definitely something different…_


	10. Ribbons from Her Hair 2: Interlude

Sake of such a fine quality gave the little cave a relaxed and festive air, and in no time, both Jyuusan-hime and Ensei found it easier to laugh than to hold it in. Now, she took a turn at regaling him with "war stories" of her childhood, growing up with the Shiba Clan at the knee of Ryuu Shiba, the former patriarch of the clan, and a general whose fame rivaled Advisor Sou's.

To her delight, Jyuusan-hime realized that Ensei reminded her not really so much of Jin as of Old Man Ryuu, Jin's grandfather. The resemblance in manner and appearance was so strong in fact that she started teasingly calling him "jichan" while the sake warmed her blood and loosened her reserve. It wasn't that she was exactly drunk, but Ensei decided he should probably stash the canteen out of site before either of them progressed any further and woke up sorry the next day.

"Hey, I have something for you," he informed her, trying to distract her from her hunt for the sake, which had now turned to an awkward and suspicious search of his person. Inviting as that prospect was, his conscience nagged him not to take advantage of her somewhat impaired judgment, so he opted to redirect her attention instead.

"Oooh, a present from jichan?" she beamed excitedly and clapped her hands like a spoiled child, making Ensei laugh.

He dangled a small, thin stick with holes dug out on one side, suspended from a piece of blue ribbon, in front of Jyuusan-hime's sake-brightened eyes.

"Aha! So that's where my hair ribbon went!" she glared at him.

"Aw, c'mon, you're gonna love this," he assured her, scooting next to her, cross-legged, by the fire.

Her pained expression revealed that she highly doubted that.

"Ok, here's one for you and one for me," he explained and handed her a stick and kept an identical one for himself.

"_Two_ pieces of my hair ribbon?!" she exclaimed with outrage.

"Blow," he instructed, brushing off her indignation.

"Huh?!" she stared at him aghast.

"Blow into it," he repeated. "Right there, on the end."

She stared at the dirty stick, looking first at one end and then the other.

"Ha, like this," he sighed impatiently, taking the stick from her. "Open."

Her face flushed, but he had poised the stick in front of her mouth expectantly and, incomprehensibly, she parted her lips.

"Good girl," he grinned and popped the stick between her lips.

She felt completely ridiculous. "En-shei…" she mumbled around the stick in her mouth.

"Mm…nah bro," he mumbled back, balancing his stick between his teeth. He followed his own garbled directions and blew steadily through the thin stick, covering the holes intermittently with his fingers. A low, sweet sound slipped out like a bird's song.

"Heh-heh, how's that?" he beamed proudly, holding the miniature flute in his fingers. Jyuusan-hime's eyes widened with surprise and she grinned in spite of herself. He spun the lithe stick deftly through his fingers the way he spun his staff in his hands. "You try it now."

She pursed her lips around the stick and blew hard and long, emitting a sharp, piercing screech that rattled their eardrums. Ensei quickly jammed his hands over his ears, and felt his fever wracked head spin.

"Whoa, whoa!! Ok!" he winced, cringing with one eye squinted against the shrill clatter slicing through him.

Horrified and humiliated, Jyuusan-hime stared at Ensei in shocked dismay.

"Is that some kind of Ran family anthem?" he scratched his head, remembering her brother Ryuuren's _unique_ musical style. He took her flute away to see if he had somehow made it defectively. He blew into it and the gentle warble of a nightingale came out the other end.

"I want my hair ribbon back!" she sulked, turning her face away to hide the mortification crawling up past her eyebrows.

"C'mon, Kotori-san," he slapped her on the back good-naturedly. "You just need some practice. I've been playing one of these since I was a kid."

"I'll pass, thanks," she turned away, flexing her tingling shoulder muscle where he'd slapped her, resisting the urge to stab him with both flutes.

"Hang on, now," he caught her fingers in his to stop her retreat. "Actually, you played it just fine for its purpose," he told her, handing the stick back to her.

"Which is?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow and forcing herself with a deep breath to ignore his warm, rough hand resting over hers and making her fingers tingle.

"It's an alarm whistle," he said. "We lost each other in the forest during that last battle. I don't think either of us wants to go through that again," a strained look shadowed his expression and her stomach churned, remembering the dread she felt. "If we lose each other again or if one of us is attacked or in case of any emergency, we just give this a blow as hard as we can and alert the other."

A surprised grin spread over her face. "Oh, I see!"

She held it to her lips and gave a small blow and the reedy sound came out in a soft squeal that made her grimace.

"Blow hard…like when you're yelling at me," he advised with a teasing smile.

She blushed at the reference to her temper, but did as instructed, puffed up her cheeks and blew hard into the whistle. The sound came out high-pitched and loud, echoing around the cave and out into the surrounding forest.

"Wow!" she exclaimed and giggled at the spinning in her head, the ringing in her ears and the tingling on her lips from the whistle's vibration.

"Ah, there you go! Good job!" he patted her shoulder and his hand slid casually through her hair and squeezed the back of her neck in encouragement. He heard her breath catch and felt her shoulders hunch tighter under his hand. She glanced at him briefly before darting her eyes away, but he could easily see a ruddy blush staining her cheeks. "Sorry…heh, Hime-san says I have no manners. She's trying to reform me, but I think it's a losing effort," he winked at her.

"Oh…no…I'm just…uh, still a little sore from the fight," she assured him with a strained smile and squeezed his hand.

Maybe the sake was playing tricks on his mind, but he had started to notice a strange inequity in their relationship. Jyuusan-hime had no hesitation about touching him, so much so that her informality with him surprised him regularly. Yet, if he as much as brushed against her, she would react as she just had—a quick gasp and a jump, as though he were made of jagged glass.

Even at that moment, she sat with one hand holding the whistle up to her eyes, examining it closely, and the other one casually hooked around his fingers braced against the ground, as if holding his hand was commonplace and comfortable for her. Intrigued, he shifted his weight, and when he did, he adjusted his hand so it lay over the top of hers, not holding her, just resting over it. Not two seconds passed and she slid her hand out from under his and brushed her hair back behind her ear.

His brow furrowed, and he tried to remember if he had hurt her, been too rough, too personal, too anything, but nothing came to mind. Still, he admitted, he wasn't exactly the best judge of proper behavior. The idea that she might be afraid of him churned his stomach. She'd seen the aftermath of his battle with the assassins, and he had to wonder if it colored her view of him, made him seem dangerous. He was glad Shuurei had never seen him do more than knock people out. He regretted that Jyuusan-hime had.

"Aha! Jichan, look here," she said suddenly and leaned over to him, holding the whistle up where he could see. Her arm wedged against his and her breast just brushed against his chest as she settled against him. Her hair slipped back and swept across his chin when she lifted her head up to show him her whistle. "This hole isn't punched through all the way. That must be the problem."

He smirked at her insistence that the whistle was defective, not her playing, even though he had played it just fine himself.

"Ah, ok, let me fix it," he indulged her, and she leaned her hand absently on his thigh for support while she eagerly watched how he bored the hole through with his hunting knife.

Ok, no, he decided emphatically with relief and amusement, she definitely wasn't afraid of him. In fact, she draped against him like he was her favorite chair. Still, if he moved toward her, she would instantly tense and draw away. She was afraid of something—something that she desperately needed to keep under her control.

"This is great, Ensei!" she said excitedly after he had made the correction to her whistle and gave it back to her. She blew gently and the sound came out slightly less jarring. "See!" she exclaimed and blew again.

"Here, try this," he said, still testing his theory. He drew her hand up to the whistle still held in her mouth and positioned her fingers on it, so his fingers guided hers over the small holes on the top. He could feel her hand trembling under his and he watched the growing discomfort in her eyes. "Ok, now blow again," he said quietly. When she did, he nudged her fingers under his, so one finger moved off a hole while another moved on. The sound changed, came out less shrill, and Jyuusan-hime's eyes widened.

"Ah, so that's how you do it!" she exclaimed. "Show me again! Can you make different sounds?" she asked and the next several minutes passed in lighthearted laughter and music lessons. Her hand no longer trembled under his. It was a start, he thought with satisfaction, but then a question tumbled over it—the start of what? Her voice jerked his chaotic thoughts back to her.

"I guess I'll have to forgive you then," she sighed wearily.

"What did I do now?" he drew back, affronted.

"You dug through my gear and stole my hair ribbons," she accused playfully, struggling to keep her smile hidden.

"I did not!" he stated emphatically.

"Oh? Then how did you get my ribbons?" she interrogated him, arching her eyebrow suspiciously.

"Erm…uh…from your hair," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" she leaned closer to hear him.

"From your hair," he said and his eyes shifted to hers.

"From my hair?" she frowned in puzzlement. "Oooh, from earlier when you dried it?"

"Uh…yeah," he nodded and scratched his cheek awkwardly.

"You kept them?" she asked, tipping her head a little, as if trying to work out an intricate puzzle.

He cleared his throat. "Ha-ha, well, you never know what you'll need out in the wild."

"Hair ribbons?" she asked incredulously.

"Uh…whistle ties," he answered, holding his whistle up by the ribbon, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. "You can tie it to your belt. Handy little things," he added and spun the tiny instrument around his finger on the ribbon. "You can keep it on you all the time. So…if you ever need me, just whistle."

Her eyes, glimmering like polished river stones in still water, lingered on his long enough to draw an awkward grin from him. "Am I off the hook?" he wheedled, looking like a guilty child.

"I suppose," she grumbled with a warm, indulgent smile. "Except now I can't tie up my hair," she complained, sweeping a few wisps back from her face.

"Eh, it's better down like that anyway," he remarked off-handedly.

"Silly," she beamed and turned her face away. "When my hair's down, it gets tangled in everything."

His eyes flickered over the long rivers of black silk spilling over her shoulders and down her chest to pool in her lap. "Does it?" he asked in a low voice, remembering the way it snaked around his fingers, binding him to her.

Before his sake-slowed brain could think better, before he remembered her nervousness at his touch, he had picked up a thick strand of her hair, cradling it across the palm of his hand. He stroked his thumb over it and watched the firelight dance over its gleaming surface as it quivered under his caress.

"You don't need ribbons," he said quietly and heard her soft gasp when he shifted his body close behind hers.


	11. Ribbons from Her Hair 3: Torn

Jyuusan-hime breathed deeply, willing the trembling in her shoulders to settle down. Still holding the end of her hair, Ensei had scooted behind her and now she couldn't see him. It unnerved her. What the hell was he doing?

"Are you cold?" Ensei asked, his voice hovering somewhere behind her. He knew she wasn't trembling from the temperature. What he didn't know is why he was provoking her. Maybe he was drunk. His conscience nagged him, but this time he brushed it off. She couldn't be afraid of him, and yet…

_He saw. Of course, he saw_, she grimaced. She shook like a leaf in a summer shower. How could he not see? He was so close. Too close. This was fine, though, wasn't it? He would never hurt her. He was such a big goof and this night had been so fun. _Don't spoil it._

"No, not cold…uh, maybe a little…uh, no, I'm fine," Jyuusan-hime tried to eek out the strangled reply, but was too agitated to decide what it should be. "What are you doing now?" she cocked her head sideways, feeling a gentle tug at her hair.

"Oh, I used to help my sister braid her hair," he told her quietly. "It's been awhile, but I'll give it a try."

"You're going to braid my hair?" she muttered, taken aback.

"Mm, that ok?" he asked. "You said you didn't want it loose and getting tangled." He waited, fingers paused in her dark, shimmering locks, to see if she retreated from him.

"Um…I guess it's ok," she muttered. "But it's still going to need a ribbon."

He smiled. Her voice sounded steady, even if her body revealed her nervousness. Still, she didn't run away. She didn't hate him.

"Nah, it won't need one the way I do it," he assured her.

"The way you do it? Will I still have hair?" she asked nervously over her shoulder.

"Aw, that's cruel, Kotori-san," he complained. "You gotta trust me a little by now, don't you?" Though they were teasing playfully, she detected an undercurrent of seriousness in his question.

"A little," she answered with mock reluctance, and she heard the chuckle he couldn't suppress.

In truth, she trusted him almost completely, and the realization unnerved her. She had known him such a short time, but circumstances had accelerated their acquaintance rapidly to a close friendship and even an awkward affection. Of course, there was more running under the surface. She'd already admitted that to herself, but at least there was no reason to admit it to him.

Still, the closer their friendship grew, the more they took liberties with each other's personal space, and the more difficult it became to hide her reactions to him. She must have been crazy to agree to having his hands freely moving in her hair. What was she thinking? Maybe she was drunk. She was definitely being reckless.

_Nhhnn_, she moaned instinctively when his fingers slid under her hair, lifting it off her neck. She shivered at the cool night breeze that blew across the exposed nape of her neck. He let the silken strands tumble from his hands and swish across her back before he combed her hair back behind her ears with his fingers and gently smoothed it down. As he interwove his fingers in the long, silky strands, gentle tugs at her scalp sent tingles humming down her back.

Her body was at war between her desire to let him continue and her need to make him stop. Every tantalizing shiver on her skin made her stomach roll nervously, and she bit her lip and waited for the next touch with eagerness and trepidation. She refused to give in to fear, so she clenched her fists on the ground, bracing herself, and let her thoughts drift.

Really…this was bliss, she decided, and her nervousness calmed a little. She remembered when Bachan used to braid her hair when she was very small and sat with her under the pear tree by the river on a summer morning. Jin especially loved her braided hair because he could reach out and catch her by it when she tried to outrun him when they played. Nothing pissed her off more, and she would give Jin a sound beating until he laughed himself into agony. Ok, that pissed her off more, she recalled. She missed them, Bachan and Jichan, the soldiers that were always hanging on Jichan's every word, Bachan's dango, Jin. How strange that the play of fingers in her hair, against her scalp, across the back of her neck, could call up so vividly such happy, distant memories.

The trouble with happy memories, at least for her, was that they led to the other kind, tied with a dirty, torn ribbon, bound forever, fluttering in her sighs. Saddest of all tragedies is the poisoning of memories once sweet. To be separated from loved ones galls enough, but to never taste even their memory again starves and decimates the hungry heart.

If Jyuusan-hime dared, even accidentally, to linger on her memories of her loving, adopted family in the Shiba Clan, of her joyous and carefree childhood beside Jin and Shuuei, of her first and only love, she surely paid the price every time.

Unwittingly, Ensei's gentle touch, rustling through her hair, sweeping it up and back, brought her home again to her Bachan's lap, and craggy, old, loving fingers tying up her hair. His touch set her back upon a saddle behind Jin as he raced forward at breakneck speed, her hair whipping out behind her.

Treasures, these memories, each one, and each one locked away forever lest she awaken the dragon in her heart that had stolen these treasures from her. She bowed her head and turned away from them again, and tasted the bitterness of her hunger for them.

"Ok?" Ensei asked, noticing her shoulders droop, his hands pausing their movements in her hair.

"Uh, m-hm," she brought her head up, shaking off her gloom. "You said you had a sister," she asked, hoping to be distracted from the memories that threatened to spill over in maudlin tears. Damn sake.

"Mm, two…an older and a younger sister and two older brothers and a younger brother," he told her.

"Ah, that's a big family," she smiled.

"Not as big as yours, I guess…you're number thirteen, huh?" he surmised, continuing his work, his fingers brushing against her neck and sending chills coursing over her skin.

"Um…" she closed her eyes, trying to concentrate, and took a long, steadying breath. "There are only the five boys in the main family, the triplets, Shuuei and Ryuuren, but there are many half-sisters like me. I'm just one lost in the middle somewhere," she smiled. "Nothing special."

"Now that's not true," he interjected. "There's a reason you were chosen for the emperor."

"Oh…well…" she snorted derisively, the sake loosening her restraint. "I'm the only one dumb enough to sell herself to the clan."

"Hah?"

She felt his fingers pause in her hair. Oops, she'd said too much. She started to giggle.

"What's so funny?" Ensei asked and resumed his work.

"I think I've had too much sake," she confessed. "I wasn't going to tell you my big secret and now I've blabbed."

"You don't have to tell me," he smirked, but curiosity ate at him. _Big secret?_

"I can tell you some," she said cautiously. Ensei was a nice person. He accepted Prince Stoneface. Surely, he wouldn't judge her.

"You're going to laugh," she said over her shoulder. He waited, quietly listening. "I made a deal with my brothers who lead the Ran Clan," she related. "I promised them that I would do whatever they said if they…would save my fiancé from a death sentence. Isn't that stupid? I believed they were that powerful."

She felt his fingers stop moving again. "You're shocked," she said and grimaced, cursing herself for saying anything.

"_Are_ they that powerful?" he asked, and continued on twisting her hair in his fingers.

"No, they aren't," she said quietly. "The sentence was carried out, but a deal is a deal, so I'm promised to the emperor."

"I'm sorry about your fiancé," he muttered and finished off the braid with an intricate rope knot that held it securely at the bottom. He gripped the finished braid gently and smoothed it from top to bottom, his knuckles tracing a line down along her spine.

Her back arched away from his touch, but she couldn't tell if it happened because she liked what he did or hated it. In any case, the heat flooding through her body burned away the pain that always ate at her when she thought of Jin. However, the sudden reaction to Ensei's touch made her dizzy and she fell back against his chest.

"Hoo! I'm drunk, Ensei," she rolled her eyes up to see where he looked down at her over her shoulder.

"Heh, I see that," he grinned at her. "You'd better sleep it off. Next time maybe you'll listen to your jichan," he teased her.

"Nag," she complained at him. "Hey, isn't being drunk supposed to make you forget."

"Depends on how much you drink," he answered.

"Then I haven't had enough yet," she replied. "Where the heck did that sake go?"

"Yeah, you've had enough," he said with a smirk and put his hands on her shoulders to push her forward, so he could get up and break up the party that had taken on a melancholy air.

She gripped his hand so tightly it pinched. He watched her for several seconds before he sat down again and settled her back against his chest. He felt the tension flow out of her body.

"What do you want to tell me, Kotori?" he said after a long silence.

"I _can't_ tell you, Ensei, I'm sorry," she muttered and bowed her head.

"Ah, that's ok," he said and rested a soothing hand on the back of her head. "We can just sit here."

"I…like you, Ensei," she confessed, her cheek resting on her bent up knees, her arms hugging them.

"That makes me happy," he commented. "I like you, too, Kotori-san."

"I don't want to hurt you," she said.

"Aw, how could you hurt me?" he frowned down at her, feeling her body tensing against him.

"Jin…died…because of me," she explained. "It was my fault, but he wouldn't tell them. He protected me."

"Jin was your fiancé? He sounds like a good man," Ensei remarked.

"You're a good man, too, Ensei," she stated. "I don't want you to die for me."

She leaned her head back against his shoulder and turned her face into the hard heat of his neck. Warmth surrounded her, big hands crossing over her arms, wrapping around her waist. Even his heavy thighs braced her up between them. He was a fortress and she felt safe inside his strength.

"I was too weak…how could I be so weak?" she muttered against his neck, her voice choked with anguish. "I should have…I should have been able to fight…"

"Fight who?" he asked, and his pulse quickened. His instincts told him they were in dangerous territory. He knew this feeling. This dread. This self-recrimination.

"That bastard…murderer…I should have killed him…" she stammered angrily and he heard her voice crack.

"All right, all right, shhh…no more, Kotori," Ensei gathered her tight into his chest, ignoring the sting of pressure against his wound. "You don't have to say any more."

"He…he killed her…I saw…" she sobbed and her body quaked against him, words falling faster than her tears. "She hid me…Mom…she protected me from him…Jin protected me from him…now they're gone…"

He shifted around and turned her in his arms, lifting her easily onto his lap, so he could cradle her against him. He whispered soft, soothing sounds, not even words, against her hair, her cheek. He kissed her forehead and brushed away her tears, but her body felt limp and lifeless. He called to her, but she heard nothing but the screams of the past.


	12. Ribbons from Her Hair 4: True Worth

_A dark room, filled with a lake of blood, stretched out before her. Jyuusan-hime sat in the blood while her mommy slept. She didn't like to be dirty when she was a little girl. Mommy told her little princesses didn't get dirty. It was ok now, though, because mommy couldn't see her now. It was ok to play in the dirt, to fight with the boys, and to ride horses with Jin. _

_The lake of blood dried up and she slept on a futon in a warm room. Soon she would marry Jin. She could already cook and had improved her sewing. She liked fighting more, but she wanted to be a good wife for Jin. She would only be his. _

_She would only have been his if she hadn't been so weak. She could've pulled that bastard's hand from her mouth…he couldn't have touched her, torn her pretty robes. If she hadn't been so weak, so pathetic, so needy, she could've kept his slithering mouth off her, kept his cruel, dirty hands off…dirty with her mother's blood…he couldn't have touched her…torn her…_

_But she didn't…she couldn't…so she let him… _

_She just wanted him to go…go away quickly…s__top grunting…too loud, too loud…be done and go away…he hurt her so much, but she wouldn't cry out…go quickly before Jin comes to say goodnight…No, she would never tell…never tell anyone…her shame... But a murderer is a murderer. She didn't want to die. She should have…she was too weak. She didn't want Jin to be alone. He was such a fool. What other girl would put up with him? _

_The blood…little princesses don't get bloody…it was on her face…in her mouth…and Jin wasn't Jin…__his face was cold, dark. He kicked that bastard off her…dead…and all his blood was on her. On her hands…in her hair. Jin killed him for her…to hide her shame…to hide her weakness._

Instant rage and revulsion ripped through every muscle in Ensei's body and he felt the poison of impotent fury sickening him. She had told it all, words spilling from her mouth like blood from a fresh wound. He relived her terror with her now as though it were just happening and he was just as helpless as she had been, just as helpless as he had been when his family had been killed. How many times had she gone through it, again and again, and blamed herself? He knew the answer in his own heart.

"Kotori, dammit, it wasn't your fault!" he pinched her shoulders in his grip and shook her until she looked up at him.

"He killed him because of me!" she screamed at him, twisting her fists in his shirt and tugging on him, desperate to make him understand, to make him hate her because she was too weak to hate herself anymore. "His own father, Ensei! He killed his father for me! He let them take him because he wouldn't tell my shame. He wouldn't tell them he did it to protect me!"

Her last words trailed off in a bitter moan of grief that pierced Ensei's soul. Her body trembled against him as wrenching sobs broke over her and she dug her fingers into his skin, clinging to him hopelessly.

Patricide. An automatic death sentence. Her fiancé had killed his own father for raping her. God Almighty. She'd carried the guilt and shame every step of her life since.

If there had been a way for Ensei to hide her inside himself, shield her from herself, he would have done it. As it was, all he could do was wrap his body around her, the strongest protection he had, and give her a place to weep, to lay down her burden awhile and rest against him. He wondered if she'd ever had the chance before.

After a long time, the worst of her tears had spent themselves on his chest, and Ensei could feel her limp, broken spirit, crumpled up and shuddering silently against him. Everything about her was clear now. The distance, the fear of his touch, the anger, the independence, the loneliness, the protectiveness. She was utterly transparent and he hoped, when she looked into his eyes again, she wouldn't regret showing herself to him.

"Do you trust me, Kotori?" He felt a nearly imperceptible nod against his chest. "Ah, I'm glad. I've heard your story now, and even if you don't ask me, I think you should hear some truth." She held still, her entire body wound tight against him.

"You can't punish the bastard that did this to you or bring back your fiancé," he stated flatly, but his voice floated gently against the patter of rain outside. "No matter how many times you relive it, it can only ever end the same way." He felt her fist tighten slightly in his shirt.

"You can't fix it by blaming yourself either," he continued in a calm and clear voice, cupping his hand around the back of her head. "No matter how strong you get, there's no guarantee you can protect the people you love."

"There's also no way to make sense out of senseless violence and say, ah, if only I'd done this or this," he added gruffly. "Nobody has that power, no matter how strong he, or she, is."

"This is the toughest one," he stated and hugged her tighter. "Your fiancé had his reasons for walking the path he chose, and you couldn't turn him from it or walk it for him. It was his path, not yours. Most good men would've done the same thing he did. Right or wrong, it's a man's nature. You couldn't change it. Neither could he."

He heard her begin to weep again softly, and he clenched his eyes shut.

"Aaah, I'm such an ass," he sighed at his own helplessness, but she adjusted against him, so her arms slid around his waist and she burrowed into him. "Your tears…ughh…I'm sorry," he groaned in frustration and pressed his head against hers. "I've also…in my past…I've also done some things…well, these are some things I've learned. I thought it might help. Eh, maybe it just makes me feel less useless."

He stroked her hair quietly for several minutes. When he spoke again, his voice seemed detached and frail, like a layer of thin ice encased it.

"That…that bastard's dead, Kotori, except in your heart and your head," he muttered against her ear, and he felt her tense against him. He tightened his hold on her. "He can't hurt you anymore…unless you give him the power. In the end, only you can really kill him for good. Let that be your revenge."

"I want revenge," she hissed against his neck where her face was buried. He recognized the icy blankness in her voice. He'd sounded the same once, a long time ago. "But it won't get back anything he took from me. I'm still…damaged goods."

"Kotori…" he gasped in quiet shock and tipped her face up to him.

She immediately closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, anguish etched in deep lines in her forehead. "Please don't…I don't know how to look at you. I shouldn't have told you…I'm so ashamed…I'm…I'm…d-dis…disgraced," she confessed. "I should've let him kill me…"

He had to bite back his rage. He hadn't wanted to kill something so much in years, but he would give anything to crush the beast that had done this to this beautiful, beautiful being.

"Then I never would've met you, so I'm glad you chose to fight instead," he told her.

"Fight? How did I fight?" she glared at him. "I didn't do anything. I just let him ... let him touch me … mark me … destroy me … sometimes I can still smell him on me…"

"You did what you had to do," he gripped her upper arms and turned her toward him. "You tried to protect your fiancé, didn't you?"

"It didn't work!" she yelled into his face. "Nothing I did worked! I gave my body…to protect Jin and it didn't matter. I gave my life to my clan and they couldn't save him! In the end, I won't even have value in a political marriage for my family because I'm…damaged. I'm worthless!"

"Bullshit!" he yelled back at her incredulously. "What the hell?"

His eyes swept over her face in consternation, rapidly taking in her sake-brightened, glaring eyes, the hard line of her mouth and the rapid breaths that rocked her in his arms.

"Are you serious? That's your only worth?" His stormy brows drew down in angry disbelief. "Is everything you are between your legs?"

"Go to hell!" Her eyes widened in shock and she tore out of his grip, but he hauled her back hard against his chest, wrapping his arms around her.

"Let me go!" she barked at him and shoved against his shoulders, but she couldn't budge him. Rage surged through her body.

He saw fury, not fear, in her eyes, so he pushed her further, feeling the power of her coiled body humming in his hands.

"Is this really all you are, Kotori, huh?" he demanded, his fingers crawling up into her hair, pulling her face close to his. "All your skills…all your talents…don't you have any dreams or ambitions? Does all that exist just to be crushed under some rutting, sweaty guy who's not good enough to even look at you? I don't care if he is the fucking emperor!"

Suddenly, he released her and set her back from him. She panted wildly, her eyes wide and stunned and furious. He stood up, but she couldn't look at him. She hated him. She hated the air between them.

Even after several long moments of silence, broken only by the slowing drip of rain outside and the labored breaths echoing between them, neither of them moved from their positions. Finally, Ensei dropped his heavy hand on top of her head and she froze.

"This night's over. Go to bed. I guess neither of us can hold our liquor," he muttered, and she saw him step aside, but then stopped. She waited, stunned by the rage and remorse warring inside her.

"Kotori…" he started, but sighed wearily. She closed her eyes, and the heaviness in his voice crushed down on her heart. He sounded exhausted. She'd forgotten his fever, his injury, his kindness…everything…lost in her selfish, drunken tirade. Why was he even speaking to her?

"You've got a body…that'll keep a man awake at night. Trust me," he stated hesitantly. "But…there's…there's so much that's great about you… Just your body wouldn't be enough. I'd want it all. Everything. I'm not a smart guy, but I'm smart enough to see your true worth. You decide who you are. Not your brothers. Not your lovers. You."

This time he moved away from her and went to stand at the cave's entrance where the gently blowing rain sprinkled his face and cooled his swirling thoughts. Tomorrow, he'd apologize. He'd bring her wildflowers or make breakfast…something to make peace. He hadn't meant to be such an ass, but he hadn't felt such rage and injustice since his family had been killed. She'd suffered so much at others' hands that he couldn't stand to see her hurting herself.

_Ah, well._ _You can only light the light_, he thought and absently rubbed the spot where his chest was bandaged. _She has to find her own way._

She did. She found her way to wrap her arms around his waist and press her cheek into his back. He gasped in shock, grasping her hands where they clutched the front of his shirt, and tried to look at her over his shoulder.

"Oi, Kotori," he muttered and swallowed the nervous lump in his throat.

"You just hush!" she snapped. "You talk too much."

He grinned broadly in surprise and settled his hands warmly over hers.

She sighed and squeezed her arms tight around him. "I've had three happy times in my life," she said, her words muffled in his back. He could feel her warm breath seeping through his shirt to his skin. Soft thrills ran up his spine and he closed his eyes and listened.

"The first was growing up with Jin," she related. "The next was travelling alone in the woods. The third has been on this mission with you."

_Kotori…_

"I was happy because in each of those times, I was challenged to become stronger," she explained. "And two out of the three times, I was successful."

"Hey now…"

She released her grip around his waist, and with one hand tracing a path around him, she came to stand in front of him, smiling shyly up at him.

"You're such a weirdo," she grimaced and smiled at his deep chuckle that she could feel rumbling in his chest. Her small, pale, trembling fingers slipped into his rough, tanned hands. "You don't keep your distance, you don't mind your own business, and you don't behave yourself. You don't let a wounded little bird stay inside her protective nest." She smirked sheepishly at him. "I had to keep coming out to tell you off until eventually I couldn't find my way back. And I didn't really want to."

At his wide, satisfied smile, she slid her arms around his waist, her hands splaying out broadly over his back, pulling him against her. She nestled her face against the rough fabric of his shirt, and felt his arms closing tentatively around her shoulders. She smiled. It was his turn to tremble.

"The trouble is I feel just a little lost," she said and her voice quivered. "I've only ever known myself and the world through Jin, since I was barely able to walk. After he was gone, I didn't know how to be, so I avoided anything or anyone that made me face that. Until you came along."

Ensei's hands stroked her hair, his callused fingertips sweeping small black tendrils behind her ears, setting off shimmers of heat across her cheeks and down her neck.

"You say that I decide who I am," she muttered quietly, barely able to hear her own voice over the thudding of his heart just beneath her ear. "How can I? My brothers are powerful…and the emperor! How can I stand up to them?"

"You tell 'em to go to hell, like you do to me," he hugged her and rested his chin on the top of her head. "With your brothers and the emperor, you might want to find a more polite way to do it."

She giggled and squeezed him in the circle of her arms.

"Eh, the truth is, sometimes you can't escape bending a little for others. Sometimes you want to," he explained with a easy grin. "The trick is remembering that it's your choice."

She leaned back and smiled up at him. Her eyes were wet, but not sad.

"Ensei, will you bend a little for me?" she asked.

"Huh?" he tipped his head in puzzlement.

"You're too tall," she said, and tugged down on the front of his shirt as she lifted up on her toes, leaning her body against him for balance. "Bend a little." Her lashes swept down like tiny black feathers against the blooming rose in her cheeks, and she lifted her chin up to him.

His gaze drifted down to her lips, curled up at the corners, just the way he liked them—like a ribbon, a cherry red ribbon, twirling around his heart.


	13. A Feast for a King Part 1

If there was one thing Ensei knew better than anyone else—ever—it was how to sincerely appreciate a feast set before him. The only question was whether to devour it quickly in savage mouthfuls, or to savor it—to sip the simmering and sizzling, to nibble the soft and solid, and to lick the salty and sweet. To choose poorly was to taste bitter disappointment. To choose well meant a banquet in paradise.

The sweet, cherry delicacy now served up to him upon Jyuusan-hime's ripe and shimmering lips deserved nothing less than his most leisurely indulgence. The fine alabaster of her tapered chin, smooth and warm, like the dainty bowl of a china cup full of honeyed nectar, filled the arc between his thumb and fingers. Breathlessly, he welcomed the tender gift she offered that quivered at the brush of his thumb over its delicate rim. Roses painted in pale watercolors bloomed on her luminous cheeks, deepening to crimson as he bent his head to her, the dark fringe of his soft, untamed hair sweeping languidly over her skin.

His strong fingers closed imperceptibly, seeming too perilously rough around the frail porcelain, and yet they so gently tipped the cup to his mouth. Mmm… he wouldn't drink just yet. He'd wait to accustom his lips to the subtlety of the cup's brim, tracing its elegant curve like a flower blossoming under the morning sun.

In this pristine chalice, he found no trace of use, no place where other lips had drunk and shaped the cup to their common touch. Ah, see how this tiny cup proudly hordes its golden ambrosia, still yet to learn its other power—to give—to pour out its sweet wine and nourish the thirsty heart, yearning for its replenishment.

Ensei sighed. He envied the lucky bastard who would drink his fill—most likely, and rightly, a king. Still, he felt pretty lucky himself. Even a drop of her honey on his tongue would last him forever.

Wisps of warm, sake-scented breath drifted up from the cup of her soft lips and curled over his mouth like the ethereal caress of the irresistible moon, tempting his thirst. It lured him down to her, timid and trembling beneath his lips. His heart tightened.

"Are you afraid…Jyuusan-hime?" he breathed her name softly against her mouth, knowing her past, her pain, like his own. "This is enough, ok? We'll stop."

The feast ended before it had begun. Not even a drop for him. Ah well. For her, this was not the right time, and he was not the right man.

With a lingering brush of his fingers against her cheek, he reluctantly released her chin and smiled down at her pretty face. He sighed and glanced out at the rainy night, denying the hungry rumble in his heart that he knew would, and should, go unsatisfied. _Heh, stolen kisses from a rogue princess in a mountaintop cave—who did that sort of thing happen to? Tch, surely not him._

Yet, Jyuusan-hime had only heard the dark, gruff sound of her name wrapped in his deep voice, spoken as if it were desire itself. The husky, hungry whisper stirred ripples of molten gold inside her that she had never felt before, and her fears gradually, incredibly, began to ebb away in the waves of pleasure rolling over her.

She cast large, liquid eyes up at Ensei and found a muted blue flame flaring stubbornly in his when his potent gaze swept over her face. Drawn to his soothing heat, her small, timid fingers slowly curled into tight fists in the folds of his shirt, and she huddled into him. Her short, shallow breaths heaved her chest against his.

"Say it…say it again." Her soft, breathy words, at once a plea and a confession, hung heavily in the cool, rain-soaked air.

His eyebrows crept upward as he looked down at her in surprise. The quavering need in her voice made his stomach clench with a different kind of hunger. He swallowed the tension constricting his breath. A cold chill intertwined with hot surges of energy racing down his spine, and he vaguely sensed his control unraveling.

_Ah, we're both drunk. Well, it's just play, after all, right? A sweet, little memory to warm a cold night_, the dusky voice of his self-indulgence promised him.

A naughty smirk curled his lips, and his fingertip traced a meandering path over her shoulder, up along the arching column of her neck to stop just behind her earlobe. He leaned down close to her ear and growled,

"Jyuu--san--hi--me…"

He drew out each syllable, each one a puff of hot breath licking the sensitive shell of her ear. Instantly, a heated, bubbling flood of sensation washed over her in a great shudder that pulsed visibly along her body. She gasped and stiffened against him, digging her fingers firmly into him to steady herself.

Ensei's voice had been a fiery summons that rushed downward and outward across her body, sweeping her into its grip. She clung to him and sighed blissfully at the tingling surges coursing through her, burying her shy giggles of delight in the fabric of his shirt.

Her pleasure lasted only seconds, though, when old nightmares threatened to consume her newfound sense of wonder. She reached up to her throat as if to peel away rough fingers cutting off her flow of air. Her eyes widened and her breath started to quicken as she felt twinges of pain where pleasure had been seconds before. She stiffened, panic roiling up from her stomach, and started to pull away as darkness from her past drew her in. The memories would come next and she couldn't stand it—not again.

Then she felt an easy warmth enfolding her and the gentle stroke of fingertips along the nape of her neck, exposed by the braid that hung down her back. Small rivulets of electricity jetted along her spine at the slow, steady caress, and the sunny sensation seemed to push back against the shadows of the past.

As she snuggled into the warmth—solid, real, present—her fears seemed to recede more into the illusions they really were, horrifying, but still only illusions. Where her cheek pressed against Ensei's chest, she could hear and feel his heartbeat, thudding rapidly, powerfully, like a war drum chasing away the terrifying specters lurking in the shadows of her heart.

When his wide palm stretched out over her back and pressed her tighter to him, her eyes widened, waiting for the usual twinges of fear to begin. Instead, heat flowed between their bodies and the only twinge she felt was a scandalous tightening at the tips of her breasts where they wedged against his muscular chest. Another cascade of luminous shivers glittered inside her, and her fears fizzled in the white hot intensity.

At the jet of delicious fire surging up her spine, her head fell back and she arched into him, alive with a restless tension, eager to explore him and discover herself. She wondered with a giddy smile if this is how lovers were supposed to be—how she might have been with Jin, if only…Yet, when she roused again to open her eyes, her breath caught at the sight of the crackling blue fire in Ensei's eyes as they devoured the unguarded signs of passion ruling her body.

Unexpectedly witnessing the full and powerful awakening of her womanly desire ripped through him like a blade of fire. His rough fingers bit into her back, grappling her tightly against him, as his aching need to answer her body's call overtook him. Her petite, shaking body clung to him, and her heat seeped through his clothes, branding every curve into him, where she pressed against him from his chest to his thighs. It was sweet and hot and overpowering like nothing he'd experienced before, and he gasped hot breath into her neck and shuddered against her.

Only her quivering whimper muffled against his chest dragged him out of his lust long enough for him to realize his despicable loss of control. _Ah, hell!_

He'd only meant to sip, to sample, to savor her sweetness. He'd only meant to stir velvety warmth inside her and a first blush of desire on her cheeks. He'd only meant to let her glimpse the promise of sensual discovery possible between a man and a woman, a natural pleasure that had been stolen from her, torn from her innocence.

Instead, his own need threatened to engulf them both. The sweet delirium he felt when he looked at her drove his need to deepen the flush of passion staining her pretty face in the colors of lust. He needed to stoke the burning heat he felt between them so that it flamed so hot it consumed him. He needed to watch, to see, inch by inch, nerve by nerve, her body respond to the hunger she aroused in him.

He needed her…he needed her clenched around him, driving against him... He needed her dizzying fire, her sweet affection, and her gentle hands that insisted on caring for him. He needed her acceptance, her approval and, most of all, her forgiveness for all that he couldn't forgive in himself.

Tensing sharply with the effort at self-control, Ensei steadied his breathing and loosened his hold on her to a gentle embrace. He inwardly berated himself for carelessly letting his light-hearted, playful game spiral dangerously into chaos.

In his hands, under his care, floated a heart-wrenching vision of fragile beauty, surpassing any sunrise or mountain vista he had ever seen. Most often, Jyuusan-hime was a force of nature, unbeatable, inexhaustible, overcoming any adversity. Yet, he had held her and felt her dissolve in horror, reliving a terrifying event in her life that had left her broken and afraid of even the most innocent touch, let alone a hungry attack like he had just forced on her. The shame at his own selfish weakness sickened him. He realized that to hold her in his arms was to play with a torrid fire that could consume them both.

Yet, here they stood, wrapped around each other, racing heartbeats and rapid breaths moving in time with each other. He hadn't hurt her, and she hadn't run away. Tiny, faint lines written on her delicately furrowed brow, lashes lowered over glimmering, azure eyes, a ruddy glow glossing her creamy cheeks, a shy and breathless smile playing over parted lips—without words, she spoke her heart's desire—to open to him, to lay her broken pieces, like precious treasures, carefully, one by one, in his big, rough hands for safekeeping.

Despite the terrifying violation of her body she'd suffered at such a young age, and the equally traumatic loss of her fiancé, Jyuusan-hime had finally found in Ensei a man she wanted to trust, and her faith in him stole his breath and decimated his composure.

To kiss her as he wanted to, hungered to, feverishly and deeply, to touch every part of her and be touched by her, was to risk crushing her to dust in the realization of her worst fears. Not to kiss her…not to touch her…the aching loneliness of that thought strangled his heart. Could he be careful enough, even for a single kiss? He was a clod, an oaf, good at breaking things, and pushing too hard, too far. He was too rough, too careless, too broken himself to be trusted with such a delicate treasure. Wasn't he?

Still, she had chosen him. Even now, she smiled up with those longing eyes…longing to believe in someone again. And she had chosen him.


	14. A Feast for a King Part 2

_Deep breath…Get into position… ATTACK! _

Ensei groaned inwardly. If he was recalling Master Nan's sage advice on kissing, then he really needed to take a deep breath and clear his thoughts. The most he'd gotten out of that wisdom had been a black eye and a broom over his head until he ran away from the brothel girl who'd been the object of his…attentions. At least Master Nan got a lot of mileage out of telling the story, Ensei recalled and his ears burned.

Still, at this moment, with Jyuusan-hime cuddled enticingly against his chest, he might as well have been a kid again. His palms were clammy and his mouth was dry, and he was painfully certain his cheeks were glowing a bright red. Even the butterflies in his stomach had fainted and were now clumped together like a brick lodged in his gut. He inhaled deeply and swallowed the air stuck in his throat.

Ugh. He couldn't remember how to do it.

That is, he knew how to plant one on a barmaid to get himself free sake for the night, but Jyuusan-hime was no barmaid, despite her roguish tendencies. He'd never kissed a princess before, and well…it was damned intimidating for a guy like him.

_What the hell? Get it together, man! It's just a kiss!_

Yet, the fiery embrace they had just shared intimated that so much more lay smoldering under the surface, waiting for a careless spark to set it off. Her touch, her sigh, her warmth—it had taken inexcusably little to make him lose the self-control and patience he prided himself on when he was with a woman. It was unnerving, especially in light of the painful circumstances of her past that demanded careful and gentle attention, rather than the reckless abandon they'd nearly succumbed to. Just the memory of it set his heart thudding again.

Now, he held her loosely — no, carefully — one hand slowly stroking her back, the other cradling her cheek against his chest. He'd never been as aware of his size and strength as he was at that moment, straining to keep both in check, so he didn't overwhelm her. Even in such a relatively innocent position, he was miserably conscious of the havoc she was wreaking on his body.

He stole a glance down at her face nuzzled into his chest. She looked like she was sleeping until she sighed and turned her face into him. He watched with rapt attention as her lips just skimmed across the rough cotton of his shirt, her warm breath seeping through to his skin. Those lips…like cherries…

"_Ensei-kun, it's very simple,"_ he suddenly recalled Enjun-sama's words from long ago. "_Always remember that a woman is very much like a fruit."_

_Ah, that's right. Good old Enjun-sama!_

"_A woman is tempting, sweet, refreshing, and the best are often difficult to reach_," he explained. "_She should not be plucked until she is ripe and bowing toward you from the tree. Pluck carefully and gently, so you do not damage her in any way, and then she will give you every part of her and fill you until you're satisfied."_

At the time, Ensei remembered, his reaction to the advice was an odd and disconcerting tightness in a certain lower extremity at the same time his stomach growled for his favorite fruit. That was more than he'd gotten out of his master's advice, so as soon as he could, he snuck off to the brothel with a few coins he'd managed to save.

To his horror, the only lady available was the broom-wielder, but he was determined.

"_Well, boy, what do you think that's going to get you?"_ she turned her nose up at the coins he laid in front of her.

"_A…a…kiss,"_ he answered and his voice cracked.

"_Hmph,"_ she rolled her eyes, but sauntered toward him and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. _"If you're going to do it like last time, then you can just take your money and get out!" _she barked at him.

"_I won't do it like that…I promise,"_ he said and stood up tall, already a man of his word.

The smile that tugged her lips gave him hope.

"_All right, then,"_ she said with an impatient sigh, scooping up the coins. _"You're the man, aren't you? You kiss the lady."_ She was slightly taller than him, so she leaned down a little toward him.

_Bowing from the tree,_ he remembered Enjun's advice and knew she was ready to be plucked. Good Old Enjun-sama!

Oh, right…now he was supposed to do the plucking!

He reached up and carefully cupped her chin between his thumb and fingers and gently drew her to his mouth. Her eyes widened when he smiled softly and appreciatively at her and lifted his mouth up to hers, tenderly suckling her bottom lip and tracing his tongue slowly across the opening between her lips. He moaned a little against her mouth, just like he did when he finished off the last of his favorite fruit, succulent and sweet, tingling on his lips and tongue. _Mmm…_

When he moved to release her, she slid her warm, soft fingers around the back of his neck, drawing him to her. That night, for his few coins, he learned all the ways a woman was, and was not, like a fruit. The next morning, whistling and walking home with a bounce in his step, he decided that it would be rude for him to set Old Enjun straight, especially since he already had a wife, so must have done something right. Master Nan, though, he could use a few pointers.

The fond, old memory left a wide grin on Ensei's face, and with a flutter in a certain lower extremity and a fixation on his favorite fruit, the wide store of information he had gathered over the years came flooding back to him. _Yoshi!_

"Oi, Kotori," he drew back a little to look down at her. He cupped her cheek and his fingers gently traced the creamy curves of her face.

"Mmm…" she smiled warmly up at him.

"Do you know what my favorite fruit is?" he asked.

"Oh, don't tell me you're hungry again?" she frowned wearily, but still smiled.

"Staaarving," he growled and his smiling eyes twinkled with the first sliver of dawn's light fading in through the cave opening.

"Well, what is it?" she sighed and tilted her head slightly, letting his fingers wander over her ear and along her jaw. "There might be some growing naturally around here."

"Cherries," he answered quietly and the tip of his thumb traced the curve of her lips. "Aaah, I can't resist 'em."

"You say that about all food!" she teased.

"Oooh, no, cherries are _special_…sweet and tangy, red and juicy," he described to her passionately, while the rough pad of his thumb brushed over the sensitive rise of her bottom lip. "Mmm…when they're really ripe, you just hold up your hand and they fall into your fingers from the tree, as ready for you as you are for them."

"Uh…" she swallowed the air caught in her throat. "There may be some…" she muttered breathlessly against his thumb, now feathering over both her top and bottom lips together. "It's almost morning. I can…um…look for some then." Her lips parted and she breathed roughly against his touch, leaning into his chest, her fingers curling in his shirt.

_Bowing from the tree_, he thought with a contented grin.

"Un-uh, Kotori, I can't wait," he grumbled hungrily. "Besides, I already found some."

As though he caught a little bird on his finger, he perched a knuckle under her chin, gentle pressure guiding her slowly to him as he bent down to her. She sighed softly as his lips melted around hers. The tender, sensuous embrace of his lips, cradling her mouth in his, lingered on, tumbling them helplessly through time, through the feather-light inhale and exhale of breath blending between them.

Iridescent shimmers of light and heat swept across her cheeks, twirling down the nape of her neck, bathing her shoulders and glittering out in waves over her body. His warm, leathery hands cupped her blushing cheeks, and he tasted her again, moaning appreciatively, before he released her lips to brace his forehead against hers.

"You taste like sake…and rain," he whispered gruffly over her cherry-red lips, wet with his kisses and the moisture in the dewy morning air.

Her soft, shuddering gasp rattled his rickety, patched-together control and automatically, foolishly, he folded her tightly against his chest as he clenched his muscles tighter in defense against his own crumbling restraint. Instantly, the wide plane of his body enveloped her in solid heat, and her hands moved roughly over his shoulders to curl around the back of his neck.

This time…this time, with her lips trembling hungrily just below his…this time, tugging down hard, making him bow to her, this time…she reached up and plucked him.


	15. Renewal

Sunrise crept up over the surrounding mountain peaks and gradually lifted the low-hanging clouds that swirled around the cave opening where Jyuusan-hime sat braced against Ensei's chest, wrapped in his arms and a heavy blanket. Ensei glanced down at her face, lit with the sunrise's glow, and smiled when he saw that she had fallen asleep. He lifted her slackened lower jaw to close her mouth and chuckled when it fell back open.

"So cute," he sighed. "Some night, eh, little bird? I'm a little tired myself."

He glanced around him and decided one piece of ground was as good as another for a bed. He shifted Jyuusan-hime in his arms and lowered her down, pillowing her head in the bend of his elbow. Careful not to jostle her too much, he scooted down beside her and settled her on his chest. Cocooned beneath her under the blanket, he folded one arm under his head and wrapped the other around her shoulders, resting his fingers in the tousled braid that draped over her back.

Rays of sunlight sliced through the morning clouds, streaming out over the sky like a heavenly fan made of gleaming light. The beauty of it, with the melody of larks singing the day's arrival, the scent of juniper pungent after the rain, the sweetness of her kiss lingering on his lips, and the soft warmth of her body curled into his, clinging to him—

His chest tightened and he swallowed the lump in his throat. The breath he drew in was so deep, his chest lifted and Jyuusan-hime stirred in her sleep, mumbled his name and drifted back into slumber. A helpless smile tugged at his lips and he bent his head a little to press a reverent and gentle kiss in her hair.

The sun cresting the mountain paled in comparison to the glow burgeoning inside him, somewhere around the place where she slept against his heart. He blinked twice, the light weighing heavy on his sleepy eyes, and he let them flutter closed, still seeing the sun's bright disc burned beneath his eyelids, purifying everything it touched.

_Mmm..._he sighed contentedly as sleep swept him away like a meandering stream. _If the sun's light can renew the whole world every morning…surely one man should be easy…_


	16. Sake's Revenge

Jyuusan-hime's eyes had barely cracked open when the thunder inside her head began to rumble. Cautiously, she reached up to run her fingers over the top of her scalp, certain she would find a sharp blade cleaving her skull. As the stabbing pain followed her touch, she realized that the only blade knifing across her head was the winnowing scythe of Demon Sake. She had a hangover.

Managing to pry one eye open to a squint, she pieced together that she was lying on the floor of the cave near its opening. She lay on her side facing outward, disoriented by her slanted, squinting view of the twilight sky. She sunk fingers into the ground to stop the cave from tossing around like it was afloat on a turbulent sake-filled sea.

"Uuugh…" she groaned from her dry mouth and swollen, papery tongue. "That was really good sake."

By now, she could open both her eyes and sat up somewhat steadily, staring out at the deep blue sky. The last thing she recalled was watching the sunrise with Ensei. Was this still the twilight of dawn, she wondered, or was it now dusk? And where the heck was Ensei?

She carefully turned her head, then craned her neck a little to look outside, but he was nowhere in her limited field of vision. She groaned again and mumbled, "nothing but trouble," as she crawled to her feet and gradually straightened to a standing position.

The cave reeled from side to side—or was that her, she wondered—as she made her way toward her swords. Attempting to strap the leaden weights to her sides, they slipped from her weak fingers and hit the ground with a clatter.

"Oh, hell, never mind," she grumbled and braced herself against the cave wall until the knifing pain between her eyes dulled. She turned toward the cave opening, sincerely hoping that, if attackers had already subdued Ensei, they would have the decency to dispatch her quickly as well.

Seriously, her confidence in the inaccessibility of the cave made her relaxed enough to joke to lighten her cranky mood. She expected to find Ensei feeding the horses, or off hunting cherries, or maybe trying to catch that night's dinner from the pond behind the cave. She stumbled in that direction, thinking that if Ensei wasn't there, she would take advantage of his absence to enjoy a much-needed bath and to clear her head.

As she suspected, Ensei had fed and tended the horses, and it appeared, had even taken them out for a stretch of their legs. Both animals looked contented, so she continued on around the outside of the cave toward the pond.

As it came into view under the dusky light, she saw no sign of Ensei, and though she felt curious as to his whereabouts, she was delighted to be able to sink her sore, dusty body into the warm depths of the hot spring. Ensei was a big boy, after all. She was sure he was fine. He could handle himself, she decided with a slight pang of guilt at her overwhelming desire to submerge herself in the soothing water.

Despite her aches and pains, the quiet evening surroundings lulled her, as she shed her clothes and slipped leisurely into the warm steam rising from the surface of the hot spring. Frogs had begun to croak somewhere in the reeds circling the spring, and crickets joined in the natural symphony, all set against the rush of a waterfall spilling down a rock face and into the far end of the pond adjacent to the spring.

Ah, she couldn't wait to feel the pounding of the falls on her shoulders, loosening the tension in her muscles. Even if it rattled her sake-afflicted head, she vowed to soak under the shower until she felt human again. Even as she kicked her legs slightly back and forth and bobbed in the deep center of the spring, she smiled at the delicious and exhilarating sensation of the water moving against her sensitive skin. The freedom with which she swirled in the water, spinning, rolling and floating up on its buoyant ripples, the warmth below her contrasting with the chill slipping over the front of her body, made her giggle with delight. She let her loosened hair drift up around her as she floated, feeling the heat seep into her aching scalp and release the pain.

She stroked her arm through the water, which mirrored the dark gray sky above, and wriggled lithely and silently across its surface, drawing nearer to the falls. The flume of rushing water grew louder as she pulled up close to it and positioned herself to climb up onto the rock ledge at the base of the falls, which formed the natural edge of the spring.

As she braced her arms to push up, she looked up to get her bearings and froze, staring at the sight before her. Curtained behind the undulating sheet of water crashing down only a few feet from her, Ensei leaned on one arm against the rock face behind the water, his back turned to her, stark naked.

_Ah, hell! Not again!_ she thought, because her thoughts were the only part of her that could even remotely function. She didn't dare move a muscle that might attract his attention, while her mind raced through strategy after strategy of how to make herself invisible and extricate herself from this mortifying situation. No matter what scenario she devised, however, they all ended the same way—with her fingers catching the droplets of water spray trickling down his back.

She gasped aloud at the image and the related earthquake that rocked through her body at the same time, making the water slosh against the rocks around the spring. With eyes as wide as the rising full moon, she darted a horrified look up at Ensei, but apparently, he'd heard nothing, simply continuing what he was doing.

What was he doing? Jyuusan-hime tipped her head, distracted from her predicament by her curiosity.

She slowly and silently sunk down into the water, so only her eyes peeped up over the edge and she studied the chiseled figure before her, not so unlike the rock where he leaned, all hard edges and planes. With the thundering of the falls, she couldn't hear anything, so she assumed the same must be true for him. With that sense of security girding up her curiosity, she moved a little to the side, so she could see just a bit of his face, though it was quickly being swallowed up in shadows.

From her vantage point, she could just make out the pained expression on his bowed face, obscured somewhat by his loose-hanging, wet hair. She commiserated that he must also be suffering the wrath of the sake demon, as she watched his wide shoulders heave raggedly with each breath he pulled into his lungs.

Her gaze followed the tapering curve of his back, muscles rippling with every movement, to his waist and over the taut, rounded swell of his rear, slightly whiter than the rest of his skin. Her eyebrows crawled upward on her forehead as she saw the muscles there flex rhythmically. He shifted his weight to his left foot and the muscles in his legs, streaked with dark, wet hair, tightened along the hamstrings and flexed in his cut and defined calves.

She couldn't contain the lascivious grin that slithered across her lips, and her cheeks bloomed with the heat suffusing her entire body. She should have felt awful to be spying on him like this. She should have been terribly ashamed of herself. And she would have been, except that she had spied on so many soldiers at the Shiba camp when she was a girl that the guilt had desensitized to a nagging hint of something deliciously naughty rather than outright evil.

This was certainly NOT the first naked man she'd ever seen. She'd even briefly seen Ensei naked before, she recalled with a teasing smile. However, this was the closest proximity she'd had to man in his natural state, and she was riveted. Her eyes roved up and down his body and each time, she detected a toss of his head, a quiver of muscle, a clenching or unclenching of his fingers on the wet rock wall where he leaned, subtle and not-so-subtle movements that fixed her eyes on him. She couldn't believe that this powerfully coiled body had held her so gently, and she wondered with a catch in her throat what it would feel like to uncoil and unleash him.

As if on cue, his entire body tensed, and he leaned forward against the rock wall, burying his face against his arm. At first she instinctively leaned up out of the water, anxious at the sudden and obviously painful change in his position. Instantly, her eyes swept over him and took in the steady piston motion of his arm, bent at his side and wrapping around his waist to the front, obscured from her view. In time with the movement of his arm, his hips thrust forward and the muscles of his thighs clamped tight, balancing him in one fluid motion. The hand she could see strained into a fist against the wet wall, and his shoulders trembled. He was like a hammer driving ferociously into nothing. His head fell back, his straggled, sopping hair sweeping down between his pinched shoulder blades, and even over the rush of the falls, she could hear his gasps and a guttural, high-pitched groan.

Just when she'd determined she'd better leap to his rescue, he groaned loudly, thrusting forward with all his force, and his voice reverberated against the wall, "Uhnn…Jyuuu…saa…ahnnn…"

Her eyes shot open wide with realization, remembering the one other time she had seen this vaguely similar action while spying on one of the camp soldiers. At the time, she had been so distracted by the spectacle that Jin had caught her, lectured her, made her apologize to the mortified soldier and then sat her down for a long and frank talk about the facts of life, all of which disgusted her at the time. Well, that is, except for the parts that utterly fascinated her, much to Jin's dismay and stifled amusement.

Now, she was the one to be dismayed. At least, she would have been if she hadn't deeply inhaled a gasp while flailing backward in shock, and swallowed a tremendous lungful of water. She completely submerged under the water with a loud splash and couldn't determine if her head or her feet were higher in the water. She struggled to right herself, but she tossed from side to side, pulled downward, and water began to flood her burning lungs. White lights flashed behind her eyes and she thrust her hands outward until they struck something solid under the water.

"Oi, don't panic! Hotaru, you're so stupid!" Jin's teenaged faced swam over her through the water and he grinned at her, his one eye twinkling, until her splashing flushed him away.

Instantly, she had been hauled up from the murky depths in a great slosh of water spilling from her body. She gasped for air and clung to the arms that carried her above the surface. Hot water gushed from her mouth between coughs and gasps, and she felt herself being pounded on the back. Someone was calling to her through her muffled, waterlogged ears.

_Jin? JIN?_

She forced her eyes open, as eager to see her beloved again as she was to know she herself was alive.

Yet when she rubbed the water from her stinging vision, it was Ensei's anxious face that looked down at her. It was his arms that crushed her desperately against his cold, wet chest. It was his heart pounding against her. It was Ensei who had saved her.


	17. Homecoming

As if time had held its breath, stilling all but the steady burble of the waterfall, only the ragged gasps of the shuddering man and woman huddled at the edge of the spring broke the dimming twilight silence.

With darkness rapidly descending over the pond, Ensei held Jyuusan-hime tightly against his chest, one arm supporting her shoulders, the other braced under her bent knees, still half-submerged in the warm water. Her fingers trembled on his rapidly rising and falling chest, and she became aware of the hammering of his heart under her fingertips. She braced her cheek against the solidity of his cold, wet skin and exhaled deeply, expelling the last of the panic that roiled inside her. His chin rasped across her forehead as he tucked her head against his shoulder and pillowed his cheek on her wet hair with a deep sigh of relief.

"Don't scare me like that," he muttered urgently, straining to keep his voice steady, and caressed his lips over her forehead.

"I'm sorry," she answered in a small voice, nothing like her own.

"You ok?" he asked, his tone deep and dark, and tipped his head a little to see her face.

She glanced up at him and the motion positioned her mouth just under his. She felt his warm, rough breath teasing across her lips, saw the storminess in his eyes, shifted in the pressure of his arms, holding her just a bit too tight. Even in the murky twilight, she could see how much he wanted to kiss her, in the tension of his jaw and the way his eyes consumed every inch of her face, settling at last on her parted lips, still sipping at the air.

He desperately wanted to kiss her, but he didn't.

They had kissed many times the night before, laughing, playful, teasing kisses. Every now and then their kisses wandered near the edge of something powerful and hot, until he carefully pulled back and hugged her, letting the moment pass. He kept everything light and uncomplicated. If they parted ways right now, both would have pleasant memories to spark a secret smile, but neither would have anything to regret.

Now, she saw that he was perched at that edge, his eyes like blue-black steel, fierce, intense—terrified. He couldn't pull back. Not at this moment. He had just held her lifeless body in his arms and pummeled life back into her. His capacity to keep up meaningless masquerades that held them at a cautious distance from each other submerged in the water when he pulled her from it. If this was to end here, to end with a brotherly peck on her forehead and a scolding for her carelessness, she would have to make that happen because he couldn't.

Yet, she didn't want to pretend anymore either, so she didn't.

"Ensei…I'm cold," she huffed a fiery breath against his mouth, and the ragged longing in her voice and the way her knees drew up over his arm and instinctively pinched together and pressed into his chest nudged him over the edge he had dared not cross.

After her near-drowning, his heart had only just begun to beat normally again and now it thundered so loudly, it drowned out any voice of reason and restraint that may have attempted to talk sense into him. He could only think about the sight of her lying still under the water, her voluminous hair suspended around her like some unnatural undersea vines, tying her to her doom.

_What if…what if…_

By the time he had realized she was in trouble and made it to her side, her body had already nearly stopped moving. Her flailing hand had weakly brushed his chest and then stilled and floated dead in the water. It took a considerable bit of his strength to extricate her from the pressure that sucked her down.

Then, even once he had her cradled in his arms, her lifeless body refused to draw breath until he spun her over and pounded the heel of his hand against her back, making her cough up copious amounts of water from her lungs. Even as she heaved and sputtered and choked, he pressed his face against her back and lost his composure for several seconds, until he steeled himself to focus on the shuddering little body in his arms, struggling to suck life back into her lungs.

What if she didn't make it? But she did.

Now, feeling her body quivering and alive in his arms, he was overcome with shocking emptiness echoing inside him, in the place where she had dug into him and become part of him, who knew when or how. He hadn't been aware of her presence in his heart until she had been ripped from the place and dragged away from him into dark depths where he almost couldn't reach her. Now, he needed her to restore herself to that place, to reassure him that she still filled him there, or the hollowness would remain.

He'd been a hollow man almost all his life, but nothing and no one else had filled the empty space before—not Seiran, not Shuurei, though they had come closest. His heart was an empty house, a home where he was not allowed, banished by his own remorse for the black hatred that had once owned him and smeared his tainted soul in the blood of other men.

He never looked inside the sad little house where love and happiness once lived, long ago, when he was a child and took love and happiness for granted. That child had died with his family. Only this empty shell walked on that looked like that child, laughed and played like that child. Yet, in truth, he was a destroyer, a man capable of cold-blooded murder and a man like that could not own the little house. It had remained locked up and empty because the master had lost the key to the door.

Today, he'd been made to peer in a cloudy window to that house, something he dared never do, and he found a warm fire burning in the hearth and blue ribbons strewn across a chair. The door was thrown open, and light and air poured in, but the resident was not there. Where had she gone? How had she come to be there without his notice? He waited nervously at the door for her to return, to smile at him, to touch him as she brushed by him. He only wanted to glimpse her there, curled up by the fire, safe and warm in his protection. That would be enough. Having nothing, he needed so little.

Yet, she gave him everything. Her whispered words offered herself to his warmth, to be sheltered again in that place inside him where she had found peace. Her trembling caress across his chest showed him where she belonged—in his heart, in his center, deep inside this fortress. The timid movement of her arm, shifting low and tentatively to her waist, allowed him, asked him to see her, all of her, how she needed him and wanted him. Her bashful smile and sweet, joyous sigh as her lips parted under his revealed her trust in his protection, her belief in his goodness and her faith in him.

As her kiss surrendered to him, welcomed him, celebrated him, she beckoned him to come with her across the threshold into the little house…and so he did.


	18. Awakening

When Ensei drew back from the sweetest kiss of his life, he looked down at Jyuusan-hime and found millions of diamond-like stars from above mirrored in her eyes, as dark and fathomless as the night surrounding them. Her beauty swept his breath away like a sudden zephyr coursing over the mountain. Surging, radiating light filled him where emptiness had been—how long, how long…

With Jyuusan-hime cradled in his arms, bathed in the warmth of the hot spring, Ensei let his captivated gaze caress every part of her, from her hooded eyes to her sighing lips to the creamy skin of her shoulders, to her pert, pebbled nipples, half-hidden against the darker skin of his chest to her soft belly and the shadowy vee just barely concealed between her straining thighs, down to her toes curling under the water's surface.

_Is this moment even real?_ he had to wonder. _Is she real?_

"Ensei…" Jyuusan-hime muttered a soft complaint and wriggled slightly against him, drawing his attention to her downturned face. A blush so deep it shone in the dark had crept across her cheeks, but she lifted her eyes to smile shyly at him. He caught his breath at the sight of her innocence and desire struggling against each other, openly shown in her lovely face. He kissed her lips softly, barely a brush of skin to skin, and he felt her welcoming, eager grin curl up against his mouth.

Slowly, she was letting go of her makeshift innocence, what had been left to her, and blossoming in his arms, before his eyes. Her fingers tugged breathlessly at the crinkled ribbon tying up this gift of herself that she wished to give him, and hesitantly, tantalizingly, the ribbon and wrappings were falling away, this time by her own hand.

He fought hard—slow breaths, closed eyes, refocused thoughts, every trick he had learned over the years—to control his body's reaction to her, but he was slowly being consumed by a steadily growing hum of energy radiating from the center of his chest outward over his body.

Out of habit, he tried to convince himself that he had no right to this moment, that he didn't deserve her and that she didn't belong to him. Yet, the more he tried, the more it all felt like a lie, like cowardice. Something in each of them grasped tightly to the other and would not let go, and in fact, burrowed deeper whenever either of them tried to pull back or think sensibly.

Still, he knew better than anyone that what God and nature may have intended was often derailed by man's plots and machinations. The flower eagerly blooming on a pristine mountaintop under a sea of stars would wither and be crushed down below, beneath the boot heels and cart wheels of the business of men. He looked down at the pretty flower snuggling down against his heart, and he couldn't help tightening his hold on her and kissing her fiercely, as though his urgent need for her might make her more substantial, more inseparable from him.

"Ensei, set me down, please," she said quietly.

_So soon? Ah, well…_

Carefully, he let her legs slide off his lowering arm, but he held her up until she got her footing in the soft silt at the bottom of the spring. His full and bursting heart ached at the distance between them, resenting even the cool night air that touched his skin instead of her, and he remembered why he'd kept his heart empty so long.

Jyuusan-hime simply stood near him, not touching him, not speaking, for a long, awkward time. She kept her face turned down, so all he could see was her soaking black hair plastered against her lily-white breasts, bobbing enticingly against the water's surface.

His thoughts tangled in her hair, buffeted against her breasts, sunk beneath the water to swirl between her thighs—he had only to brush his fingertips against her skin, white and then dusky pink, soft and then pebbled and hardening…tomorrow would evaporate in the feral cries he would coax to her lips with his fingers and his mouth, with his arms and his legs, with the hardness pulsing beneath the water and the tenderness trembling within his chest. _Damn tomorrow…damn it all…_

But as he moved to draw his shaking hand up to touch her, he felt her fingertips glide up over his stomach from beneath the water to the edge of the wound on his chest, already healing over.

"I did a good job, didn't I?" she said casually and lightly traced her finger over the edges of the raw, red welt. He drew in a sharp breath as his muscles involuntarily quivered at her touch and a sea of goosebumps flushed across his chest. She pulled her hand away as if she'd been burned.

She glanced up at him anxiously. "I'm sorry…I hurt you."

He smiled down at her. Despite her past, her inexperience was evident and a little daunting to him. Most of the women he'd been with, especially recently, knew exactly what they were doing. He wondered if someone like the emperor, young, refined, in a palace with silken sheets, was not better suited to open her eyes and her heart to the physical side of love. At the brief image that came to mind, Ensei's face darkened and he felt like he'd been stabbed with a flaming sword between his shoulder blades.

He drew her hand back up and pressed it against his chest, directly over the raised welt, his big hand covering her little one possessively. "No, you didn't hurt me. It feels good. You did a great job healing me."

"We seem to have a knack for that with each other, huh?" she grinned sheepishly, and let her hand drift lower on his stomach to ghost over the smooth curves of his abdomen.

His eyes moved over her, watching her fingers exploring him and then watching her response to her discoveries revealed in her face—the widening of her eyes, the curl of her lips, the catch of her breath, the blush on her cheeks. He smiled warmly at her, thoroughly charmed by her excitement, a pitiful wreck of pleasure under her touch.

"Is this…all right…" she asked awkwardly.

"Nhhhnnn…yesss," he growled hotly and a playful chuckle trilled in his throat, making her giggle and bite her lip bashfully. He studied her open, revealing expression and cupped her cheek warmly. "And…no…"

"No?" she frowned, but the reluctant sadness in his eyes made her lower hers. "You're thinking about…later…what happens later…"

"We can't stay here forever," he stated in his usual frankness, though his voice was soft, and he stroked a comforting hand over her hair. His chest tightened and ached when he saw that his words had hurt her.

She closed her eyes and bowed her head at the surge of grief that gnawed at her stomach. Her hands splayed against the stubborn muscles of his stomach. Somehow, the feel of his skin under her fingertips, like velvet over steel, made her giddy with happiness. Why did she always find happiness in things that slipped through her fingers? Yet, his strength, his heat, the unyielding iron of his body seemed so much more real than unknown tomorrows—things that didn't even exist yet.

"We can't stay here forever," she murmured softly, "but we're here right now."

With her head bowed to hide her nervousness, she shifted her body close to him and let the soft lapping of the water lift and caress her aroused nipples against his stomach. The mix of sensations on her sensitive skin, jostled above and below the warm water, sped shivers of liquid heat surging down her spine and flooding around her hips.

His breath shuddered in his chest and his hands spanned the circle of her narrow, supple waist beneath the water. At first, his grip was rough and tight, and she thought he might push her away, but he didn't. After a long moment of uncertainty, she felt his grip on her loosen and his fingers float against her skin with the motion of the water. Heat tingled across her body at his weightless touch, drifting up along her sides, until his hands emerged from the water, fingers perched lightly against the sides of her breasts.

His thumbs stroked slowly over the sloping swell, stopping just at the edge of the dusky circle brushing against his chest. He drew his fingers slowly down over both breasts, and her chest heaved nervously under his feathery touch. She could only manage short shallow breaths now, and those were punctuated with whimpers and sighs of fear, shyness and pleasure. His thumbs smoothed over the puckering, pebbled skin circling the aroused nubs, drawing closer and closer, making the skin tighten and harden more with each pass of his callused thumb against her awakening flesh.

"No one's ever…I've never…" she muttered in embarrassment, her cheeks aflame, her words spilling nervously from her lips.

"Mm…" he leaned down and kissed her forehead and then her cheek.

"Is it...supposed to…hurt?" she whispered anxiously against his cheek.

"Do you dislike it?" he asked quietly, breathing kisses over her mouth while his fingers continued their slow, tortuous movements. "Tell me if you're scared, ok?"

"Uh…uh…uhnnn…"

"Mm…trust me?" he kissed one corner of her mouth and then the other.

"Uh-huh…y-yesss…"

His mouth bore down on hers with an urgency that bruised her tender lips and devoured her breath until she felt as though she were drowning again, this time in a pool of fire. His insatiable hunger for the touch and taste of her tongue against his, flicking, sucking, licking, teasing, tormenting, plundered her until molten fire poured over her. She moaned in short, sharp whimpers against his mouth and dug her fingers into the corded steel of his neck.

Just when she was lost in the consuming flame of his kiss, he gently swept his thumbs over both engorged pink pearls throbbing at the tips of her breasts. She instantly arched into him, thrusting herself into his hands as her lusty cry pierced the night and silenced all but the tumbling waterfall. Even then, the rush of her own blood, on fire, surging through her, drown out any other sound but her pounding heart.

Intense satisfaction and power raced through his body as every movement of his fingers, sweeping, tightening, rolling, pinching, plucking, drew a new and deeper response from her. She moaned and whimpered into his mouth, she suckled his lips and tongue, she raked her fingers over his shoulders and chest, she tangled her legs in his and thrust her body against him. His erection pulsed hard against her belly, but she was too lost in the intensity of sensation sweeping over her, this pleasure-pain she'd never known before, to notice anything but the bath of fire she'd sunken into.

"E-Ensei…" she moaned and whimpered helplessly against his chest. She looked up into his fiery eyes and hers were drunk with desire, but tainted with distant shadows of fear. Only her fear broke through his own selfish need to be filled with her.

"You're afraid," his breathless words heated the air between them, and Jyuusan-hime couldn't stop the helpless gasp when his rough hands captured her face between them. He looked so deeply into her eyes that she thought he might steal her soul.

"I…I…haaa…I..don't want to…I don't want to be afraid," she drew in a deep breath and forced her hands to steal around his waist. "I don't want to be afraid…En…sei," she huffed against him and pressed her mouth hard against his at the same time her fingers crawled down to cup the curve of his rear and draw him firmly against her. She clenched her eyes shut and shuddered—terror and lust and instinct and intention all colliding as she drove her body against his engorged erection. "Ensei…please…" she whimpered and lava-hot tears arced over her cheeks, "Teach me like this…teach me not to be afraid."

A deep, quaking groan dragged up from his chest and vibrated over her lips as he plundered her mouth in an angry, hopeless, possessive kiss. He crushed her in his arms and thrust instinctively against her, forcing a shocked gasp from her lips at the burning heat and power of his arousal driving against her. The full strength of his entire body hummed around her, sweeping her away in its power, and he clung to the shredded tatters of his self-restraint. He kissed and lapped away the tears on her cheeks and she tasted them when he stormed into her mouth again.

"Kotori…Kotori…" he whimpered and growled, and his hands, heavy, hard, biting, gripped her back and roughly pulled her into the quaking, shuddering, strength of his body. "I can't. I c-can't…" he ground out through gritted teeth, his words contradicting the unrelenting pressure of his drive against her. "You're…you're…not mine."

She struggled in his arms and tore her mouth away from his, until he stared down at her, his eyes sparking with stunned and angry confusion.

Her eyes flashed with lust and heat, and something else, something deeper, something like…

"I am yours," she answered hotly, certainly, insistently. "No matter what happens…no matter what…I'm only yours."

With a fierce, feral hunger in his eyes, a rapacious lust that twisted fear deep inside her, he grasped her shoulders, tight, biting, desperate, and searched her face for some lifeline that would push him back to a safe harbor, out of this tumultuous, turbulent, engulfing obsession to be inside her, buried deep in her, in her body, in her heart, in her soul. But the more he looked, the more he saw that she alone, only her, no matter what, was his safe harbor.

Without another word, barely another glance at her, he swept her up in his arms and carried her out of the pond.


	19. Forbidden Taste

A brilliant tapestry of milky stardust and moonlight canopied over Jyuusan-hime and Ensei, lying couched on a lush bed of satin-soft wildflowers and long grass. The steady rush of the distant falls played a backdrop for humming crickets and croaking frogs, serenading them with night's secret song.

Jyuusan-hime, thirteenth princess of Ran House, the most powerful clan in Saiunkoku, had been intended to adorn an imperial bed of brocade bolsters and silken sheets, to be lulled by the dulcet tones of ehrus and biwas, and to submit to the soft, manicured hands of royalty.

Yet, the hand that now drew a slow, meandering line of heat from her lips to her navel was neither soft nor manicured, but hard and scarred from work and battle against nature and man. In this domain, in this wilderness, Ensei was king.

He read nature's secret, silent codes in the movements of the animals, the changes of the wind and the shifts of the earth that most people never noticed nor understood. Because Jyuusan-hime moved in nature as easily as he did, he could read her the same way, detecting the shifts of her needs and desires in the tensing and easing of her body and breath.

Ensei lay beside her, his head braced against his hand, and intently studied the slow progress of his fingers on her bare skin and the reactions it drew from her—a sigh as he moved over her throat; a quiver between her breasts; a tremble at her stomach. Feeling the shudder of her fears rumble through her, he drew a swirling circle around the dark well of her navel, making her giggle in spite of her uncertainty. He smiled down at her and saw her shoulders loosen and relax into the cool grass. Her smiling eyes drifted shut, surrendering her trust to him.

That simple act devastated him, twisting the air into a fist in the center of his chest. Self-doubt burned at the edges of his heart. She had declared that she was only his. His to borrow, but not to keep, he amended. Was that enough for either of them? Was that all either of them wanted?

Jyuusan-hime had asked him to heal her fear with his touch, his kiss, his body—to replace a memory with a memory.

Was she only to be a memory to him, another paper doll he played with and then folded up and put in his pocket as he moved on? Would he touch his hand to that pocket when loneliness kept its nightly vigil beside him, until the memory of her withered and his pocket was empty again?

Was he only to be a memory to her, armor she would don before she lay in the emperor's loveless bed? Would his memory become the new shell in which she would hide from herself? How long would it be before she couldn't tell the difference anymore?

She had asked him to heal her, but _his_ need for _her_, like a ravening wolf, tore away at her need for him to be restrained and patient. He closed his eyes and drew a steadying breath. How could he fix her, he wondered, when he was so broken himself?

His smoky eyes wandered over her quivering body, alive and eager beside him in the grass. When he reached for her, he'd wanted to touch her gently, but his fingers bit into her tender flesh as he pulled her into his arms. He'd wanted to kiss her softly, but his tongue plundered her mouth, hungry to taste her everywhere. He'd wanted to hold her in his arms, but his body ached to be held inside hers.

Haa, he just needed some room to breathe, to pull himself together and take control of his reckless urges. If he could just keep his hands off her, keep hers off him for a minute, he could pull back from this hunger that devoured him. Then, he'd enjoy this moment for what it was and not what some long-dead dream of himself wanted it to be.

He knew he would only have a taste of her. She wasn't meant to fill him up, to fortify his strength, to feed his hopes, to seed his dreams and to blossom into lifesaving nourishment for his soul. She wasn't _really_ his. No one belonged to him, and he belonged nowhere. He owned nothing in this world but the weapon he wielded—and so every pleasure he had was a guilty one—stolen or borrowed, but always brief, and not quite satisfying—and that should have been enough for a man like him. It had to be.

Maybe Jyuusan-hime and he both just needed a little comfort, he decided, and that was all right. A few kisses, a few touches, a little release, probably wouldn't fix anything, change anything, because it would be just a taste of comfort, of healing, but it might help. Both of them were physical people, and being cooped up in the cave had them both tense and needing some kind of outlet. And it would pass a lonely night. Both of them had too many demons in their hearts to consider anything more.

Mmm…bedding a woman like her would be as sweet and sinful as tasting any forbidden fruit, and Ensei's body hummed with anticipation as his lips wandered over hers. Her mouth was delicious moving under his, warm, sweet, like cherries in the sun. Her body was soft and stirring like clouds billowing in his arms. Her hair caressed his chest delicately, like the fingertips of angels whisking him to heaven. The wildflowers where she'd lain had cuddled against her skin, and the fragrance twined with her natural scent, making him drunk with her. Air burned down inside his chest as he breathed her in, just like the emperor's fine sake had done when he'd stolen his taste of that.

He buried his mouth against her throat and licked the fresh, earthy taste on her skin, lingering from the pond. The heady tang in his mouth recalled the image of her breasts bobbing in the water, her pearly, pink nipples teasing against his stomach, and he sucked in burning breath that incinerated in his lungs.

He grazed his teeth over her arching throat and suckled sharply until he pulled hot, hungry moans from her that hummed through her skin against his lips. The sound snaked through him to his groin, his arousal already pulsing.

He drew back from her and skimmed his finger over the dark evidence of his ravenous lust for her, staining her moonlit, virginal skin. He smirked arrogantly and laved his tongue over the sensitive bruise until she mewled for him like a feral kitten. The summer zephyr he stirred up inside her with his hot breath on her cool skin arched her willowy spine in a sinuous stretch that caressed her breasts across his chest.

He branded her throat with his wounding kiss as her breasts seared against the raw scar slashed over his ribs, evidence of his protective, possessive impulses toward her. As he reveled in her wound that belonged to him, his wound that existed for her, he knew her bruise would fade and his scar would heal, and then nothing would remain to bind them. All he could claim for them was this moment, slipping through his fingers even as he grasped for it.

When he looked down into her half-lidded eyes, the last trace of his restraint sizzled into ash in the blue flame of longing he found there, mirroring his own. His lips nudged hers open and his tongue licked up her heated breath. She moaned into his mouth and whispered for more, not less, faster, not slower, fevered, not gentle.

It wasn't a gentle hand that teased and tweaked her tight nipples into thick, aching buds. It wasn't a coaxing, tender kiss that parted her lips in a fiery gasp. It wasn't a sweet word that told her how she made him hard and mad with need for her, and how, very soon, he would make her cum for the first time in her life. And the second.

As his mouth claimed hers roughly, possessively, bruising and soothing at the same time, he lowered her into the cool grass and his chest pressed her heavily into the ground. He could feel her tensing beneath him, and he read her anxiety in her wide eyes and flat mouth.

"Trust me, little bird," he huffed against her cheek and it might have been a question or a command.

She nodded and chewed her bottom lip, but his kiss playfully stole it from her and suckled it into his mouth. He teased it until she giggled and wriggled under him, her fear sputtering into dying sparks in the night.

He caressed his hands down the length of her arms, gripped her thin wrists and pinned them back to the ground on either side of her head. His smoldering gaze crept down over her, from her clenched fists where his hands held her down, to her challenging eyes that admitted no fear, to the delectable curves of her breasts, thrusting upward because of the way he held her. His eyes lingered brazenly on her small, pale nipples that blossomed openly under his heated gaze.

She squirmed slightly, and the rush of color to her face was so rapid and intense her cheeks pinched. She clenched her eyes shut and averted her face, certain her entire heart, her fears, her deepest secrets and desires revealed themselves in her unguarded expression.

"You look good enough to eat," he growled, drawing her timid gaze up to him, and his lips curled up slowly at the edges.

Her breath caught in her throat and guilty pleasure burned across her body as she exulted in the wicked leer he cast over her. When he looked at her like that, he made her feel beautiful.

He lowered himself over her to kiss her cheek and jaw, holding her body open, his fingers entwined with hers, her breasts lifted against his wounded chest as it grazed over her. She writhed under him, her breaths shallow and reedy, but even those little wisps were greedily devoured by his insatiable mouth.

Despite his consuming kiss, she tensed suddenly and yelped in shock when she felt his knee nudge between hers. He slowly, smoothly spread her legs open enough for one of his thick, muscled thighs to settle between them. His other leg cradled hers, snuggling it between both of his. Most shocking was the prodding pressure of his engorged erection wedging into the steamy junction of her thigh when his body came to rest over and around her.

She shivered when the coarse hairs on his leg decadently tickled the insides of her thighs as he rocked his hips against her. At the same time, his fingers traced slowly down over the ticklish palms of her hands and along her wrists, making her pulse jump. He touched sparks to the heightened nerves in her skin with the caress of his fingers and his mouth, making sensual centers out of parts of her body she'd never considered that way. The bend of her elbow…the curve of her underarm… She sipped at the air and arched her head back as the rough hide of his hands blazed fire across her shoulders and down her chest.

His large hands engulfed the fullness of her creamy breasts, and he drew his fingers over rosy, dimpled flesh, pebbling under his provoking touch. The rough pads of his fingertips rasped enticingly against her tender nipples, teasing them until they thickened, throbbed and thrust toward him, seeking his soothing relief.

His dark curl of a smile preceded a tight, twisting tug on her straining, innocent buds, sparking jolts of electricity crackling through her body. She cried out sharply, grappling his shoulders, and whimpered as though lashed by an invisible whip of lightning that snapped across her. She drew a deep breath that lifted her into his hands, and his whispered name, like a plea or a prayer, entwined in her soft sigh and drifted in the night.

Full of possessive pride, he watched and felt her ride the wave of heat rolling down through her body, quivering her stomach, flexing her hips, spreading her thighs, bending her knees, curling her toes into the wildflowers beneath them. He wanted to taste her pleasure — on her lips, on her throat, on her nipples, on her navel, lingering, languishing, lost in the hot, wet center of her… He groaned and pressed his forehead between her breasts as fiery sparks rocketed through him and pulsed his erection against her.

She tangled her arms around his shoulders, her shyness nudged aside by the thrill of heat and muscle pulsing under her fingers. Her hands roamed his chest and measured over the expanse of his thick shoulders. Her fingers shaped the dips and bulges of his steel-contoured arms, tracing the tendons that strained between leathered skin and rigid muscle. She raked her clutching fingernails over the hard ridges around his waist and sketched them up over his back in rapid, sweeping circles.

With a deep groan, he tossed his head back, his wild mane of hair whipping at the sky. He arched powerfully against her at the fiery shower of sparks that her touch ignited over him. The muscles all over his back, from his shoulders tapering to his waist and to the plane of his hips, tensed and danced and flexed.

"Kotori, uuuhhnnn, your hands…" he groaned nearly incoherently against her ear, and the guttural sound tumbled down through her body.

"Ensei," she moaned against the masculine rasp of his cheek, feeling a steady heat, recklessly, feverishly building inside her. "More…"

Spurred on by her staggering passion, his wide palm ranged quickly down her body, and he cupped the sensuous curve of her rear, wedging her hips tightly against him. His deep, ragged breaths and clenched muscles fought against his powerful need to take her hard and fast, even as he sank his fingers firmly into the yielding softness cradled in his hand and drove his pulsing shaft solidly against her thigh. He leaned in and suckled her lips fiercely, like a man dying of thirst. He drank from her, sweet and heady wine that intoxicated him with her being.

As soon as he released her lips, she felt his mouth dipping to her breast, and the ends of his hair traced prickly thrills over her responsive skin. His tongue bathed her sensitive flesh, and the cool night breeze whisking over her wet skin sent shivers leaping from nerve ending to nerve ending. The heat of his mouth kissing, sucking, lapping at the rough ridges rising at the pink center of her breast left awareness of nothing else possible. She whimpered and instinctively shifted her aching, demanding nipple toward his mouth. He grinned evilly at her insistent desire, and let his kiss trail away, then back, so close, around and then away again.

Suddenly, he heard a frustrated groan vibrate in her chest, and her fingers fisted in his hair, tugging his mouth onto her erect and raging rosebud, blossoming thickly at his relentless teasing. He dug his fingers into her, enflamed by the audacity of her need. His little rogue princess was not afraid to take what she wanted from him, he discovered to his delight, and the electricity pulsing between them crackled in the air.

Her reward for her boldness was his mouth closing tightly around her throbbing, pinching bud, suckling it long and hard, while his tongue flicked the tip roughly. Jyuusan-hime's body thrust upward in a shattering spasm of molten sensations spilling from his mouth into and over her body.

He released her and her body writhed as his tongue lavished its rough, flickering flame against the tight, pulsing nub. His teeth teased her until she ached, until words spilled from her lips begging him to stop and not to stop. He shifted to her other nipple, tweaked to attention by his unforgiving fingers, and sucked the sweet, pink peak sharply, firmly, drawing what seemed to be every bit of her energy into his mouth.

With Ensei's mouth sucking and rolling one tormented nipple against his tongue while his fingers tantalized the other, Jyuusan-hime's body rode waves of delirious pleasure. Gasping for each shallow, thready breath, thrashing, clawing for it, she barely noticed his hand wandering down her body. She was too tossed by the tumultuous sea of fire surging inside her to realize he had shifted the weight of his hips against her, so his fingers could move between them, brushing lightly over the dark velvet between her thighs.

Only when his hot palm closed over her, cupping her loosely, and his thick, roughened fingers played along the wet petals of her slick center did she cry out his name in shock. She grasped at his shoulders, struggling against him in panic. She strained to squeeze her thighs together, but the heavy leg between hers held her open to his touch.

"No, no!" she whimpered as his threatening hand stirred terrifying sensory memories from her past.

Suddenly, she could smell him, _him_, an acrid tobacco smell mixed with sweat and some spiced incense. Her stomach rolled. She was in her room at the Shiba compound. His shadow had fallen across her young body for only seconds, long enough for her to notice, but her reaction time had been too slow on rear attacks then, and his hand was on her mouth. Aaaah, damn, damn, with her current skills, she would have been able to gut the fucker in half the time, before he'd ever gotten a chance to jam his tearing hand in…

"Oi, Kotori," Ensei's firm, elevated voice, snapped her eyes open, though she didn't even remember when they'd closed. She stared up at his gentle expression and tears filled her eyes on a shuddering gasp of realization. He slid his arms under her and held her against his chest.

"I'm sorr…" she sobbed and her words choked before she could speak them.

"Hey, hey, you have no reason to say that," he stroked his cheek against hers, snuggling into her, fighting the crushing regret twisting in his chest.

"It'll hurt...just like..."

"I'm here with you…I won't hurt you, little bird," he murmured at her in an easy, deep voice that began to steady her racing heart.

"I could feel him…smell him…" she babbled through her sobs with her hand over her face.

_Ha_, he clenched his eyes shut and cradled the back of her head in his palm, holding her delicately, as though she might break in his big, clumsy hands. When her tears quieted to soft hiccups, he gently drew her hand away and pressed it to his mouth, looking into her eyes.

"It's just you and me here, right?" he smiled down at her, caressing her hair back from her forehead and kissing her tears away. "I mean, besides the frogs and the crickets. And this bug-eyed owl that's been spying on us all night. Get your own girl!" he lifted his head and yelled into the distance.

Jyuusan-hime heard the sudden flapping of wings taking flight, and her eyes widened and a choked giggle bubbled up on a shallow breath. Tension began to leak away into the night and into the grass and into the past.

"Your laugh sounds like bells. It's pretty," he told her and flashed her one of his devastatingly goofy grins.

She hugged him tightly, desperately, as if she might make him more real, more present. He filled her arms solidly and surrounded her like a fortress. She felt safe inside his warmth and wanted to wrap hers around him.

"Ensei…um…can we…can we try again?" she glanced sheepishly into his eyes and her cheeks colored darkly.

"You sure?" he studied her carefully.

"No, but…I won't lose to…to that," she declared in a trembling voice and lifted her chin a little.

He had to bury his face in her hair for a second or two to pull himself together. _This woman…this woman…_

When he could, he kissed her, caressed her, and told her she was magnificent, breathtaking, beautiful, making her blush and duck her face against his shoulder. He playfully tantalized her erect nipples, sweeping her silken hair across them, suckling them through her black tresses until she moaned. He licked her stomach and told her how sweet her body tasted in his mouth. He drank her sighs and told her how her sweet, hot sounds made him hard. He cradled her hips in his hands as she rocked into him and told her how he ached to be inside her.

"Kotori, you feel so warm," he murmured in a husky voice. His breathy kisses steamed over her throat, while his fingers caressed her hip and his thumb brushed the soft, dark patch at the apex of her thighs. He felt her body tense and heard her draw in deep, slow breaths, but she didn't panic. Slowly, as he coaxed her mouth into a searing kiss and whispered softly to her, he felt her surrendering to the heat stirring under his fingers.

"You're as soft as silk," he sighed as his fingertips moved gingerly between her thighs. His touch floated faintly above her skin, stirring the downy velvet along her sultry opening, causing shimmers of heat to wash over her. He felt her quiver under his hand, and his own arousal throbbed hotly in response.

"I want to touch you…taste you…" he said darkly and leaned down to lap his tongue slowly over her nipple as his thick middle finger copied the motion along her opening, spreading her slightly, slipping just inside her. Her body shuddered and she thrust her breast against his suckling mouth.

"You feel how hard and hungry I am for you," he lifted his mouth to hers and savored her lips slowly, languidly, as he rolled his hips against her, firmly pressing his thick, aching shaft into the silky, hot joint of her thigh. He shuddered, dragging a deep, steadying breath into his lungs, but kept up his evocative murmurs and provocative movements.

"But, even so," he drew back slightly and looked deep into her lustful eyes laden with want, "I'll stop right now…" he leaned down and kissed her cheek softly, "…if this scares you…" he dipped his tongue smoothly between her lips, "…if you don't like this…" his fingers moved up over her and licked lightly at the tiny pink pearl of pleasure nestled between her hot, wet folds, "…if you don't want to feel this…"

With a quivering gasp, she arched up, her knees parting and drawing upward at the spasm that shuddered through her on a wave of prickling heat. His circling, swirling, caressing finger rolled smoothly over the small, thickening, sensual hub, making her muscles shudder and her hips pulse with the flush of heat building inside her. She whimpered and dug her fingers into the grass.

"Easy now," he murmured gently at her ear and slowed his strokes to let her come down gradually, careful not to overwhelm her too quickly.

"I would do anything for you, Kotori, anything you want, any time," he assured her, his voice a smoky tendril of desire curling up her spine, "even if what you want…is to stop."

His fingers, wet with her essence, trailed away over her thigh, and he rolled his weight off her so that the only parts of his body touching her, were the inside of his thigh draped over her leg, and the throbbing head of his erection, which pulsed in a sticky pool of his desire on her thigh.

"Ensei…" she simpered and writhed and complained like a spoiled child. Her whole body seemed to reach for him, and he simply watched her unraveling before his eyes. The demons of her past crumbled to ash in the wildfire he had touched off inside her. There'd be no stopping now, he understood, judging from the blind lust in her eyes. He burned from his groin outward over his body and he imagined her brilliant eyes, like summer, clouding over as she came against his tongue.

She groaned uncomfortably and instinctually tried to pinch her thighs together against the restless tension between her legs as her awakened, stirred up body demanded its relief. He nudged his thigh against her leg, spreading her more, and she gasped and shuddered at the cool breeze that licked over her wet opening.

_Ah, she was so close. _

He slid his thigh up against her wet center, and when she felt the satisfying pressure, she instinctively rode against it and cried out, as he pressed tighter against her. He watched in rapture as she began to lose herself, her composure, her restraint, her modesty, drenching his thigh in her hot juices as she drove against him, ground onto him, discovering her own pleasure.

He moved over her again and thrust his thigh hard against her at the same time he captured her nipple in his greedy mouth. His lips and tongue and fingers worked rapidly down her body as he slid down between her legs. He replaced the pressure of his thigh against her with his fingers, pinpointing the friction she needed, whimpered and pleaded for.

His touch set her off in an arching spasm that lifted her hips just above the grass. He shifted so one arm slid under her thigh, bracing her against his shoulder, as the spasm passed and she lowered again. He continued to stroke his fingers over her and into her, watching her body writhe and rock and stretch, consumed by the chaotic sensations beginning to build up inside her again. The scent of her arousal took possession of him as he leaned closer to her, his mouth just above her entrance, coiling hot breath over her wet, tender skin.

The rhythmic rocking of her hips matched the movement of his fingers over her and she slowly gyrated against his touch. He held still and watched her moving, pleasuring herself against him, and he grinned with satisfaction, with elation at her responsiveness, at her passion, at her sensitivity—he'd never been with any woman anything like her.

When he slid his tongue slowly between her folds, she continued to rock against the tip of his finger and then against the tip of his tongue that slipped into place next to his fingertip. Gradually, he slid his finger away and began to flicker his tongue in time with her movements.

She sighed deeply and began to draw rapid breaths into her lungs. The new feeling, supple, fluid, hot, fast, slow, expanding and contracting over her, found myriad new trigger spots that radiated vibrant surges of electricity outward from her center.

As tiny explosions of sparks echoed through her body, and she writhed and moaned with each one, he shifted slightly to allow his fingers to stroke along her opening. Her thighs stiffened a little, but his tongue flickered quickly over her until she panted and rocked her hips, opening for him. He barely slipped his fingers inside her when he felt her inner muscles tugging at them, closing on them.

He couldn't help the rumbling groan of need that vibrated from his mouth against her sensitive flesh, but the dramatic feeling jerked her from her reverie, and he felt her fiercely pushing at his shoulders, trying to dislodge him. Without stopping his mouth's movements, he lifted his eyes up to her shocked face, complete with stunning cherry red cheeks, and winked at her. His muffled chuckle drummed against her wetness when he saw her eyes widen, and he guided her hands into his hair before settling back into her, to suck steadily on her engorged bead, swelling against his tongue.

She opened her mouth to object to this…this…

"Uhh…uhh..hu..huhhh..ha…haaa…mmm…nnn…Enn..Enseeei…ehhnn…uuuuhhnnnn…mmmm…mMMMNNNNNnnnnMMMMNNnnn…............HAAAaaaaaahhh…"

_Uh-huh_. He released her and grinned far too smugly, leaning up to watch her body writhe in the afterglow of her very first orgasm. He licked his lips and her taste was no less than nectar of the gods to him. His arousal thundered against the ground beneath him demanding attention, but the sight of her smiling so ecstatically as she lolled back onto the grass, basking in the tingling heat saturating her body, made everything else utterly insignificant.

_Now, that was a taste._


	20. Forbidden Feast

Nearly oblivious to anything outside her own private paradise, Jyuusan-hime vaguely sensed a gentle warmth surrounding her that emulated the buoyant heat flowing inside her. She kept her eyes closed, reluctant to interrupt this enchantment, but couldn't hold back a smile at the soft, easy kisses nuzzling her ear.

Her body, now utterly aware of its own pleasure, stirred in languid movements in this pool of soothing sensation. Her cheek lightly caressed the masculine face bristling against hers. Her fingernails grazed down a long, hard arm to the hand loosely cupping her waist. Her little fingers curled around the hand's thick base and drew it upward to cover her aroused breast.

"Mmmm…" she purred her languorous approval when rough fingers began to move on her.

Her hips rolled minutely in small gyrations against the erection quivering against her belly. Her knee nudged along the outside of the heavy leg tangled around hers, and even her toes drew patterns over the bulging calf muscle flexing at her touch.

She understood on some instinctual level that if it was possible to receive such intense pleasure as Ensei had just given her, it must also be possible to give it. As much as she relished this cocoon of bliss that enfolded her, she wanted more than anything to be inside it with him.

She let her eyes drift open to a million shimmering gems burning in the sky over them and decided that the whole world must be enchanted, after all. She stroked her fingers over Ensei's hair and he looked up at her and smiled warmly. His eyes, lit with awe, outshone the stars.

"Ok?" he asked in a raspy voice.

She beamed at him, but lowered her eyes shyly as her cheeks colored. "A little embarrassed by my…reaction…but I'll get over it."

"I won't," he stated and lowered his mouth to hers in a seeking kiss that teased her mouth open for his plundering tongue.

When he released her, his mouth descended on her throat and she tipped her head back and drank in the cool air. Her whole body sang with the hum of energy surging through her from the touch of his mouth to her skin.

"I'll never, never forget your taste," he growled against her neck, kissing and lapping down to her breasts.

"Never forget the way you looked," he lifted her breasts together in both hands and laved them both with rapid flicks of his tongue, moving from one to the other.

"Ensei…" she huffed breathlessly, her voice caught between throaty passion and trembling uncertainty.

"I want to see you, hear you again…like that…" he pleaded.

"Yes," she hissed. "Touch me…"

His smirk dripped with arrogant satisfaction, and he leaned down to kiss her hard on the mouth, thrilled and pleased that she could so easily tell him what she needed.

Recalling her earlier fear, he moved his hand slowly along her skin to her thigh that still moved against his.

"I like this," he told her, stroking the back of her thigh and cupping his fingers behind her knee, lifting it higher on his hip. "Your toes are driving me crazy," he added, making her grin and blush down to her breasts.

"What else do you like?" Jyuusan-hime asked timidly, but her eyes glanced up at his like a practiced courtesan's.

His eyebrows crept up at exactly the same time her fingers crept down his stomach. His eyes literally rolled backwards as heat boiled up in his groin. Her fingers' progress stalled at his navel and she gasped when his pulsing erection bumped against her hand.

"Kotori, it feels so good," he sighed through small kisses on her lips.

He leaned back a little to give her better access. He didn't ask her to continue, but made it obvious he wanted her to.

"How…" she mumbled, her mortification nearly choking her.

"The same way you're touching me right now," he explained. He laid his hand over hers and gently guided her fingers slowly up and down against his stomach, increasing the pressure with each stroke. He let her go. "Just like that."

"Oh," she mumbled and swallowed the gasp caught in her throat, her hand stationary against his skin.

Suddenly, she clenched her eyes shut and averted her face and swept her hand down to glance against the side of his shaft. Holding back a chuckle, he scooped her hand into his grip and pressed her fingers against his lower abdomen. She shuddered down through her body when she felt coarse hairs brushing her fingertips.

He released her hand, but cupped her chin and tipped her mouth up to his hungry kiss. When his tongue touched hers, she felt his erection nudge her hand, and though her fingers curled nervously against his skin, she didn't withdraw.

He braced himself on his elbow next to her, his body open to her, and continued to kiss her. His free hand roamed from her cheek to her hair to her breasts and downward. As she responded to the fiery sensations his touches and kisses stirred, she unconsciously pressed her fingers more firmly against his skin. Her fingertips moved a little into the patch of curly, coarse hairs that were warm and ticklish to her touch. He moaned into their kiss and she hesitated a little, but the sound had been so exciting, directly related to something she did, that she wanted to try more.

Her fingers came to rest against the base of his shaft and this time he groaned and flexed his hips, brushing his erection against her, so her fingers shifted around his moving skin and ended up resting over the quivering rod.

Her eyes were wide, but when she dared to look, the sight of her hand touching him…_there_…made her gasp and shiver.

"Close your hand around me," he whispered against her ear before he caught her lobe in his teeth and nibble until tingles flooded down over her. She hesitantly curved her fingers and thumb around his thick arousal, filling her hand with an intense heat, wrapped around steel and silk. When he moved, she gasped at the feeling of raw power thrumming and surging in her grip and she whimpered a little without realizing it. He rolled his hips slightly and drew down in her hand, and then pushed upward through her grip.

"Uuuhhnnn," he groaned and his head fell backward. _Paradise…fucking paradise… _

By now, his fingers had been playing between her thighs, stroking her skin, brushing against her mound, slipping over her wetness. She had been so preoccupied with matters in her own hands that she hardly paid attention to what he was doing to her. When his tongue snaked into her mouth at the same time his fingers spread her and his erection thrust into her hand, she cried out and automatically tightened her grip on him, making him groan forcefully into her mouth.

"Oooh! I'm sorry! My grip is too tight sometimes…" she jerked her hand off him.

Instantly, he grabbed her hand and pressed it against him, guiding her fingers around him. His hand closed around hers tightly and squeezed as he pumped through their grip.

"You're not going hurt this..." he grumbled to her. "Arrows would bounce off this," he added for emphasis and she couldn't help the giggle that mixed with her breathless gasps at the power of his thrusts through her fingers. He let go of her and she held him in her strong grip, now more confident in her touch.

He rolled her flat on her back again and ravaged her mouth as he drove his erection down through her tight fist, pumping into her, spilling beads of his essence onto her belly, imaging the heat only inches away between her legs.

Barely maintaining his own control, his fingers fumbled inside her a little roughly, making her moan against his mouth. He tried to hold back some, to gentle his touch, but his thoughts were becoming tangled between the overpowering sensations flooding through him like thousands of pinpricks and the blazing heat flooding around his slowly probing touch. He lapped at her mouth and tongue the same way his fingers moved inside her, and, _aaah_, he didn't want to go slowly, slowly, the way his fingers spread over her, searching her, sensing the rhythms and responses in her muscles and movements.

She radiated raw, sensual power, pulsing and coiling, twisting up and down her spine. The throbbing, molten ache that tightened and shuddered inside her found relief only when his fingers moved over her, slid into her, spread her, stretched her and released her, stroked her slow and then faster and slow and then faster, matching the thrust of his erection in her clutching fingers.

She whimpered and writhed and bucked her hips, sinking his fingers deeper into her. Her hips drove upward on their own, instinct taking control of her, and she rode hard against the fingers filling and stretching her. Her entire body clenched like a tight fist and she could feel, feel his fingers tugging from her and pushing firmly into her again and again as her inner muscles clung to him. She needed him inside her, inside her, stroking away the twinges and tweaks, the aching agony of tension burning inside her…she needed him…_mmm…nnnhhnn_… The power thrusting in her fist would feel so good there… pushing into her…deep…strong...

"More…please…" she gasped, panting moans and whimpers, dragging in deep breaths through her nose and releasing them in quivering cries.

He made her feel euphoric and desperate all at once as his hand shifted position over her. His fingers curled a little inside her and his thumb stroked over the tiny pearl of desire, engorged and twitching, between her soft, hot folds, bathed in her body's lifespring. Again and again, his thumb swirled in small, tight circles over her, and his finger inside stroked against her, right behind his thumb, as if he rolled her between his fingers.

The pinpoint sensation shot her body rocketing upward in a tight, tense spasm, and her shallow breaths panted quick and loud, whimpers mixed with grunts and cries. She pumped hard and fast onto his hand, her breasts bobbing as she abandoned herself to the fiery sensations ripping through her, spreading her wider, tingling across her rear and down the insides of her burning, quivering thighs.

_Fuck, fuck_…he was going to lose it…_damn it…not yet… _

He halted the thrusting of his hips into her hand, but she immediately started to move her fingers, tight, so tight, around him. He felt the surges swelling his shaft and flaring around his middle, racing up his spine like thousands of needles.

_No, no…uh…Kotori…_

He desperately jerked his trembling hand from inside her to stop inciting her thrusts and pulled her hand off his throbbing, swollen veiny shaft, already spilling sticky pools on her sweat-slicked thighs. He sucked in a deep, restraining breath and let it out with as much of the tension crushing inside him as he could.

Instantly, she huffed an angry groan and suddenly shifted her gyrating, bucking hips under him just slightly—just enough—so his thickening, pulsing erection slipped across her hot, wet opening—

_Haaaa…_

…glimmering with her desire for him…

_It would feel so, so good inside her._

…ready for him, wanting him…

_Just a taste._

…needing him, opening for him…

_Not enough, never enough._

…taking him, taking him…

_Hot…hot…_

"It hurts, Ensei, inside me…"

_Aaah_, had he heard or just dreamed that sound—that throaty, brazen coo, that pitiful, ravaged, sinful plea for relief that consumed his gasping mouth like a tongue of fire, inviting him, luring him…inside.

With his own rushing, driving pulse pounding in his ears and resonating in his throbbing erection, he heard and felt her feral, unashamed, erotic whimpers for his touch, his kiss, his body, around her, in her, filling her, healing her, owning her, _owning_ _her_…

His mouth claimed hers in total possession, his tongue tangling with hers, urging her to follow, to lead, to take him as he took her. He twisted his fingers in her flowing, silken, tangled hair and wrapped it around his fists, her prisoner, inside her, tipping, slipping, hot, wet, so wet, _aaaah, Kotori…_

Licking flames snaked around his groin and twisted upward over his chest and downward around his thighs in surging pulses. His body rocked with the ebb and flow of heat crashing over him, and with each wave, he inched deeper into her dark depths.

With every thrust of his tongue into her hungry mouth, he drove his thick shaft deeper into her exquisitely tight, dripping, gripping heat—_push_ing, _tens_ing, _press_ing, _spread_ing, _tighten_ing, _resist_ing, _spread_ing, _pierc_ing, _spread_ing,_ open_ing, until she blossomed fully for him on a breathless, shuddering cry, and her inner muscles hugged and held him securely in their hot, loving embrace.

He nearly crowed at the glorious inferno that clutched and tugged at him. He arched up, whipping his head back, so the cool night air slicked over the sheen of sweat trembling on his electrified skin. A little more, a little more, he told himself, he wanted her to fly with him, so just a little more.

"Kotori, Kotori…" he muttered as he folded down over the soft, quivering angel of mercy that opened her heart and her soul and her body for him. His mouth swooped down on hers and he tasted…her tears.

He drew back suddenly, as though the lightning dancing inside him jarred to a halt and seared a wide gulf down the middle of his chest. He searched her tear-stained face and saw the shimmering liquid welling in her eyes.

_Aw…awww…no…shit…fuck, fuck…_

"K-Ko…Kotori…" he stammered, his voice thick and choking in his throat. His fingers fumbled over the tears on her face and his expression crumpled into agony.

_Selfish fucking bastard! What the fuck am I doing?!_

_Raping her._

_Betraying her._

_Betraying himself._

_Again._

"Ha…Jyuusan…please…I…"

_This wasn't supposed to happen…he wasn't supposed to be inside her…ah, fuck!_

Her inner muscles, still surrounding him tightly, shivered at his sudden stillness, and he cringed when his plundering erection throbbed inside her, still ravenous no matter what damage he might be doing...

Destroying her…

Making her pregnant…

Betraying his friends…

Committing treason…

And he didn't fucking care. He just wanted her. Now. Tomorrow. Forever. Whatever wasteland his heart and soul might be, his body was sure. This is where he belonged. _Ah, God…_

He moved to pull away from her, guilt, anguish and unspeakable remorse boiling up inside him.

_She must…she must hate…_

"Ensei…Ensei," she tugged him down to her and cried into his chest. He consumed her in his embrace…desperately…pathetically…struggling to find words…

"Don't let me go. Don't ever let me go," she muttered through her sobs, steaming against his chest. "I love you. I love you so much…so much. I know you can't…I know…but I don't want you to ever let me go."

He hardly grasped her rushed, babbling words when her seeking, hungry mouth devoured his, stealing his stunted breath already constricting in his chest.

"Mm-w-wait! Kotori!" he broke the kiss and searched her face, utterly bewildered.

Her soft blue eyes sparkled up at him reflecting a sea of stardust in them.

"Am I'm not supposed to tell?" she asked shyly, beaming, and caressing her fingers over his mouth. "I just…I love you so much, Ensei, I can't hide it anymore. I don't want to, even if I'm a fool. Even if you don't want me. I want you. I love you." Tears spilled from her glistening eyes, and she tugged him down again to her mouth.

_She…she wants…me?_

_L-loves…me?_

_She's in love with me. How? How?_

"I like…I like this…you…inside me," she muttered in shy, intimate, hungry whispers over his lips. "I thought it would hurt…I thought I would be afraid…"

"Kotori…" he nuzzled desperately against her cheek.

"I can't get enough of you…" she panted and kissed and teased his lips. She looked into the swirling depths of his eyes and hers flashed wickedly. Her gaze stayed locked on his, challenging, reckless, as she snaked her legs around the backs of his thighs and drew him into her, rocking her hips onto him.

_But…but…she's not…she's…_

_Haa…MINE._

She cried out at the shattering thrust and friction of his thick, iron-hard shaft driving into her, stroking, stretching, plunging, opening her to relentless searing agony and spellbinding ecstasy. He ground his hips into her, swirling the head of his throbbing cock against her inner walls, relieving the pressure and stoking it at the same time. The force of his body's gyrations churned against her pulsing pearl that ached for release. She lifted herself off the ground into him, driving him hard inside her, firmly wedged against him, desperate for the burning friction on her tormented nub of pleasure.

She spiraled rapidly upward in a conflagration of fire and light, sparks and surges, pain and pleasure, pulsing outward along every nerve in her body. Every inch of her was aflame and aching, pulsating against him. He drove her higher, higher, the excruciating intensity inside her rising, taking her with it… somewhere … somewhere …

She clawed at his back and fisted his hair. She bit at his skin and suckled his nipples. She raked her fingernails over the tight, flexing cheeks of his rear and held him hard inside her when he wanted to pull out and thrust again. She ground onto him—more, more, more.

"ENSEI!!!!" she wailed in a cry that shattered the night and his control, his thoughts, everything…

His power surged around her and inside her and through her, thrusting her skyward, upward, soaring, filling her, stretching her, burning her with his hot, bursting energy.

The fire ravaging inside her burst its bonds, exploding over the edges of her consciousness, drawing cries of pain and pleasure, locked together, from deep inside her. Out of her control, her fiery, squeezing inner walls clamped around him like a vise, and she groaned loudly when she felt him suddenly thicken inside her and jam into her in a raging thrust that choked the air from his lungs and strangled the growl of her name in his throat.

As she arched and shuddered on the spearing shaft driving into her, she lashed out, grasping at the strong arms that encircled her, driving down onto the surge of heat spilling into her, flooding her, quelling the inferno that wracked her body in rippling spasms.

A strong, sharp, piercing light burst through the burning ache inside her, filling her with warmth, completing her, perfecting her, and she soared on its bright beam away from anything real and toward… somewhere— heavenly — rushing … swirling…sparkling…lifted past the moon and stars into bliss, hovering with him, holding him, happy, so, so happy, drifting in warm, golden ether seemingly forever.

Then slowly, softly, like a fallen flower petal twirling gracefully on the wind, Jyuusan-hime descended to earth again, carried gently back down to the sound of the rushing falls and steady, heavy breaths, her own and not hers, to the feel of cool night breezes and the small, odd prickles that seemed to dance all over her body. Her eyes fluttered open to the ocean of diamond-like stars twinkling against the black night, and she smiled at the comforting weight of Ensei's body, steaming with heat and sweat, draped over her, still shuddering in the aftermath of their shared ecstasy.

Muttered, breathless, incoherent sighs and gasps, murmurs of names and blissful snickers and giggles mixed with weak kisses and touches between them. His strong, manly fingers trembled vulnerably on her face. His eyes glistened as if stars had fallen into them. He curled onto her chest, and his face looked placid, like a contented, carefree child, an expression she'd never seen on him before, even in his sleep.

Soon, exhaustion threatened to steal them both from their heavenly bliss, as her hooded eyes scanned his serene face and settled on the slanted grin of his mouth. Basking in the sensations shimmering over her and through her, she tentatively caressed her fingers over his lips, drawing his weak kiss against them. She smiled sleepily at him.

"I'm so tired, but I don't want to go to sleep yet," she mumbled like a drowsy child.

"Mmm…I'm exhausted. Are you warm enough? Do you want to go back inside?" he offered, but he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to summon the strength to accomplish it.

"I'm happy right here…with you," she smiled and closed her eyes.

"Sweet dreams, my little bird," he moved his hand enough to wrap her black hair loosely around his fingers.

As his eyes grew heavier, he watched her sleeping face, still flushed with her passion for him. He leaned over to kiss her lightly and she twitched her nose and sighed his name, drawing a slow smile full of emotion across his mouth. He nuzzled his face into the warmth of her neck and the softness of her hair, and before he drifted off to sleep, Ensei made himself a promise.

As a strong man with broad shoulders, who had overcome great odds all his life with sheer will and determination, he would move the Ran Clan. He would move the emperor. He would move the Earth.

Jyuusan-hime was his woman. To keep.


	21. Ensei vs the Little Staff King

A/N: I don't do crack. I've never done crack. I wouldn't know what to do with crack if I got some. However, some crack got into my system anyway, and this chapter resulted. Let's keep our fingers crossed for our beleaguered lovers as they stumble down the rocky, rocky road of new romance. Readers and reviewers make my world go 'round, and I thank you all for your encouragement.

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A little tickle on her nose made Jyuusan-hime twitch in her sleep. A lingering brush on her lips made her press them together as she grimaced and fidgeted. However, it wasn't until the feather-light touch swirled over her bare nipple that her eyes popped open, and she lurched upward, gasping in shock.

Disoriented by the darkness and the odd aches and tingles all over her body, she automatically thrust her hand out for her swords that usually lay next to her when she slept. She found Ensei instead. When she snapped her head around to him, she saw his wide eyes staring up at her from where he lay on his stomach, leaning up on his elbows and twirling a small flower in his fingers.

"Hey, you're awake!" he observed with a wide, innocent grin and quickly ditched the flower that had teased her from her sleep.

She blinked at him, her hair a tousled, tangled mess falling into her face. She scowled at him darkly. He realized then that, regardless of the time of day, Jyuusan-hime was grumpy when she woke up. And cute as hell.

Her eyes flickered to a small fire that blazed near them at the edge of the pond. Her bleary mind registered a few fish roasting on a spit. When she felt a cool breeze snake across her bare back, she looked down at herself and noticed a considerable lack of clothing.

"What the hell?!" she hissed and curled her arms and legs up to shield herself from Ensei's surprised gaze. "Where are my clothes? Where are my swords?"

"Er…" he stammered and scratched his cheek awkwardly. When he moved to sit up, she flinched away from him and then gasped again when she noticed he was also naked.

Her eyes instantly widened as a high-speed recollection of the night's earlier, passionate events raced across her mind. Heat and color crawled up to her hairline and washed over her body, making goosebumps crawl over her skin.

He reached an uncertain hand out and brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. She lowered her eyes and averted her face as hot and cold shivers spiraled down the back of her neck. Regardless of how foggy her brain might be, her body knew his touch and responded with unnerving zeal.

"Sleep well?" he asked kindly, feeling like wasps zoomed around in his stomach, stinging him at will. Jyuusan-hime wouldn't look him in the face and leaned away from him.

"Um…yes…very well…thank you," she stammered stiffly with a tight smile, still not making eye contact. Or any other kind of contact.

Ensei swallowed the dry lump in his throat. He rubbed his chest above his wound, feeling a dull burn under his skin. A sinking fear chewed down to his stomach that Jyuusan-hime might be regretting being intimate with him. He crushed down the bitterness beginning to roil in his gut.

"Uh…I caught some fish. Hungry?" he asked as he looked away toward the fire, suddenly feeling distinctly unwelcomed.

Without waiting for her answer, he handed her a short branch skewering a freshly roasted fish. She took it from him timidly, still trying to hide herself and nodded her head in thanks before turning her back to him.

_This is the damnedest thing_, Ensei grumbled to himself, turning to the fire. He bit sharply into one of the fish and tasted the bitter charring from the campfire.

Like some goofy kid, he'd waited as long as he could for her to wake until he had to help the process along a little with his teasing flower. It wasn't that he'd expected her to pounce him as soon as her eyelids opened—_well, unless…she wanted to_, he thought with a wistful sigh. He just liked her company and was eager to see what miracle might occur next after the one that had put her in his arms, declaring her love for him. He was certain he hadn't imagined or dreamt it all, but glancing over his shoulder to the expanse of bare back she turned to him had him doubting himself.

Nope, he clearly recalled how silky the skin on her back felt against his rough palms as he braced her in an arching spasm of pleasure. A man just couldn't imagine something that perfect.

Ha, okay, that kind of thinking was not helping the situation, he decided, as he readjusted his sitting position to accommodate his resurrecting arousal.

_Obviously, we've got a very touchy situation here, and all I need is for her to see you barking orders at me and…_

_Haaa…_

With a deep sigh, Ensei smacked his hand over his face. This was getting depressing. Not only was he talking to his penis, but it wasn't listening. Even the momentary mental image of Jyuusan-hime's attention focused in that area had the Little Staff King fidgeting with anticipation.

_All right, fine…if you're going to be rude and ungentlemanly, then we're going for a nice, COLD swim! Now, are you gonna behave?_

The King drooped dejectedly.

Ensei sighed, looking down in his lap. _I know, I know. It's always like this. You know how it is. Besides, what have you got to complain about? Jyuusan-hime was incredible! Not even Kouchou was like that!_

The King perked up at the memory of a writhing Kouchou flashing through Ensei's mind.

_Down, boy! I was just making a point. And you forget about Kouchou! Jyuusan-hime's the only woman I want. _

The King approved and reached up to high-five Ensei.

_Nice try, _Ensei rolled his eyes and sighed._ The only thing worse right now than you jumping all over the place would be me giving you a hand. Why don't you take a nap so I can talk to the lady and find out what's going on? It might work out for us later…_

The King snapped to attention at the implications of the word "later." Ensei groaned in exasperation.

"Is…is something wrong?" Jyuusan-hime asked in a faltering voice.

The King rose up in exultation at the sound of her voice. Ensei coughed.

"Uh…burnt fish," he faked coughing again as he glanced over his shoulder at her, smiled stiffly, and tapped his fist against his chest, trying to dislodge his embarrassment. "You ok?" he asked casually, grabbing his opportunity to make some kind of connection with her.

The King tried to make a connection with her too, so Ensei had to quickly, clumsily flop on his stomach, looking up at her with an idiotic smile. He grimaced slightly as the King writhed in protest at being crushed underneath him.

"Um…I guess I'm not really used to this…yet," she muttered and smiled thinly.

That tiny, little word "yet" made the King squirm with hopeful delight despite the heavy tyranny oppressing his freedom of expression. Ensei smiled too, hoping she meant there would be other chances to get used to whatever "this" was. He was still working on that one, but at least they were talking.

"You must think I'm…pretty silly…after…" Jyuusan-hime mumbled shyly and her words choked off as her face reddened.

"Pretty, but not silly," Ensei told her and reached out to rest his fingers against her arm. He watched a flood of goosebumps wash across her skin from the spot where he touched her. She had to be the most sensitive and responsive woman he'd ever laid his hands on, and his fingertips tingled with her energy.

The King concurred, despite the fact that Ensei tried to ignore his insistent interruptions that were growing more pronounced by the minute. Especially when she kept fidgeting like that, giving a flash here and a peek there of her most delectable parts.

Watching her awkwardly press her arms across her breasts, then drop one hand across her lap, only then to pull her knees up and wrap her arms around them, and then return to her original position again finally got across to Ensei that the girl was suffering under his scrutiny.

His heart tightened and so did the King. She was shy. He realized that he must be the first man she'd ever been openly nude with and she was feeling self-conscious. He felt instantly protective. And possessive. And hungry. The King stirred eagerly at the sudden progress they were making.

"Hold on," Ensei smiled at her gently and turned away, scanning the area around the pond. He jumped to his feet and headed toward a patch of grass a few feet away.

Despite the soft breeze licking deliciously all over him, the King twitched in annoyance at Ensei's short attention span. If he put his maximum effort into it, he wondered if he could somehow shift the dumbass's bodily momentum back in the right direction, TOWARD-THE-GIRL, not away from her. He'd heard about men being led by their dicks, but seriously…

Ensei scooped up something from the ground and returned to Jyuusan-hime, dropping to his knees beside her.

"Arms up," he instructed and she stared at him for a few seconds. "Let's go, up, up," he urged her in his bossiest voice.

After donning a distrusting frown, she raised her hands up reluctantly. To her surprise, she felt coarse, light fabric float down over her head and rest on her shoulders and chest, tangling around her upraised arms. It was Ensei's shirt.

"I don't know where your clothes are out here, so you can borrow this for now," he stated and fumbled for a sleeve, working her arm through, and then helping her wriggle her other arm through the other sleeve. He adjusted the voluminous shirt so it spread over her knees, providing her with a considerable amount of modesty. That is, except for the way the collar gapped low down the front, revealing a significant view of her breasts if she moved just so. His eyes lingered there for a few seconds before he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and casually leaned on his arm next to her.

"There. Can't have you catching cold out here," he remarked. "Feel better?"

The King was dumbfounded. They were losing ground. Now she was dressed! He knew Ensei wasn't the brightest star in the heavens, but he thumped against the Big Guy's thigh, protesting this much stupidity.

_Trust me, my friend. The lady is a lady and needs a gentleman right now, _Ensei thought, reassuring his insistent counterpart.

Jyuusan-hime couldn't help smiling sheepishly and hugging the shirt around her. "Thank you," she muttered. "That was sweet."

He beamed at her, his chest filled with warmth at the returning sparkle in her eye. The hum of energy spiraled down his spine and pooled in his groin, making the King nod in approval—maybe Ensei wasn't so stupid after all.

She held her arms up in a big stretch, now free of her self-consciousness, and giggled as she watched the broad sleeves fall down her uplifted arms and gather at her shoulders.

"You're really big!" she commented with a wondrous and wide smile, flapping her arms until the sleeves fell down over her hands again.

The King surged with self-absorbed pride, and Ensei groaned inwardly. _She's not talking about you!_ The King would not hear it and plumped up again to prove the big guy wrong.

Ensei struggled between smiling with delight at Jyuusan-hime's growing playfulness and scowling with aggravation at the King's growing…rebellion.

Still, seeing his shirt moving over her skin, covering her protectively, making her smile, making her look so small and fragile, stirred more of him than just the King.

His gaze slid down her frame, taking in the muted dusky circles at the swell of her breasts, hinting their presence through the gauzy white shirt. When she moved, small protruding points sketched invisible lines through the fabric. Ensei imagined his teeth teasing her through the thin barrier, his tongue leaving the shirt wet and translucent at her nipples.

The King rose up in full glory, preening at his triumph over Ensei's so-called "gentlemanly restraint." Pffft. The only thing more irresistible to that letch than a woman's breasts was the hint of a woman's breasts, waiting for him to unwrap them. So predictable.

A deep, thick exhale that Ensei hadn't meant for her to hear indeed had caught her attention and she turned her smiling eyes on him. For a single second, his potent, hungry gaze stole over her face, but then he dragged his eyes away and turned to head back to the fire. He needed to pull himself together—how did she have such a powerful effect on him? She needed time to grow comfortable with him, and he wasn't going to be ruled by his dick. Even if it was the King.

Yet, as he moved to get up, he felt the soft whoosh of cloth flutter down onto his hand, braced against the ground. He swiveled his head around toward her, and she smiled coyly and cast her eyes downward, her cheeks fully awash in dark rose. He hesitated for a second as his mind registered this unexpected touch, and he felt small fingers wriggle free of the fabric and hook tightly around his.

The King listed slightly toward her touch as if to lure it to him, tapping at Ensei's thigh to remind him that if he, all of a sudden, wanted to deposit those little fingers on the King's head, the King would not object.

Ensei shifted toward her and placed a soft, chaste kiss on her mouth and drew back.

The King surged insistently, rudely demanding more, and Ensei moved his arm across is lap, hiding the evidence of his response to her kiss. The King nudged against his arm to move it, hoping for a chance to simply say hello to the lady, but Ensei wouldn't budge.

"I can't imagine what you must think of me," Jyuusan-hime stated in a quiet, wobbly voice, her head still bowed, though her eyes darted up to his now and then. "What sort of woman does…all that…so suddenly…and…" her voice dropped even lower, "…outside in the grass." She shuddered involuntarily.

Ensei's brow furrowed anxiously, and he drew her against his chest.

The King celebrated his unfettered freedom and took every opportunity to reach for Jyuusan-hime, but Ensei's tree trunk of a thigh stood between him and nirvana.

"Kotori," he muttered against her ear. He kissed her cheek and leaned back to look into her eyes, stroking her face delicately. "Everything happened so fast, didn't it? I should've…slowed it down, but…haaa…I just didn't want to."

"You don't think…um…" she stammered and her expression grew dark. "You don't suppose that…what happened to me…before…uh…the attack…made me…a loose woman…"

She gasped when Ensei caught her face roughly between his hands. He glowered down into her eyes.

"Never…never," he kissed her firmly on the mouth as if he could heal the scalding words. "I don't ever want those lips to say those words again. Got it?" He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. "Don't even think it," he added urgently as he wrapped her in his arms. "You're a lady, a princess, no matter where you are or what you do. You couldn't be anything else."

She hugged him tightly, letting the stifled breath of relief rush from her lungs. Her eyes welled up and she buried her face in his neck.

He cupped the back of her head and hugged her, feeling the burn of regret bubbling in his throat.

"It's ok, Kotori," he murmured into her hair, but his voice strained to climb from inside him. "Uh…we can…we can probably leave tomorrow…leave this behind…get back to the mission. Don't cry. We'll say it was only a dream…and…I'll try not to…I won't…touch you anymore."

The King fainted.

Jyuusan-hime drew away in shock. Her wet eyes locked on Ensei's stormy ones. "You…" she sucked in a sharp breath, "you…think that's what…we should do?"

He brushed tears from her face with his thumb and nodded slightly.

She bit her lip and sucked in a reedy breath. "I guess…I guess… things…would be easier." Her eyes clenched shut and she lowered her face.

"Right," he stared at her, feeling his insides slowly cracking.

How the hell was he going to stop touching her? He wasn't touching her now, and he could feel her heart beating inside his chest.

"It's better, right? This way…this way…you won't cry," he said more to himself than to her, trying to justify this betrayal of everything that had changed inside him in the last day, in the last weeks, because of her. He couldn't stand to see her cry, though, and being with him had made her cry. It was only going to get harder from here.

Still, even with his thin resolve newly in place, he couldn't stop himself from reaching out his hand to lift her chin. He needed to see her reassurance that this was the path they would take together, but separately. No, that was bullshit. He just needed to touch her.

However, time seemed to hold its breath in that moment when their eyes met. She was crying. He hadn't stopped her tears at all. Her eyes were nearly a bloody red with the strain of tears pouring from them. Her cheeks were drenched. Her nose puffed in ruddy irritation. Her lips pursed tightly together and her chin trembled.

"Ensei…" she whimpered pathetically.

In a rush, time sped forward in a tempest of tumultuous emotion, desperate, bruising kisses, feverish, gripping touches, tangled, wrapping limbs, smothered, loving words, choked, sighing gasps.

The King shook suddenly from slumber when a jolt of electricity surged straight up through his crown. Whoa!!! He wondered what the hell had happened while he was napping in depression that now found him pinned between Ensei and Jyuusan-hime as she straddled his lap, clinging to the Big Guy and raining kisses on his face.

The King shrugged. He guessed he was going to have to get used to this roller coaster ride with these two. Still, her enthusiasm made him shiver with delight and she sure felt warm against his back. The Big Guy could pick 'em, he had to admit. Lucky bastard. He decided it was time a little of that luck rubbed off on him too.

The King roused himself in a nice, tall stretch that cuddled into the warmth of Jyuusan-hime's belly, covered by Ensei's shirt pooling between them. He was determined to show her just how much the Big Guy needed her, and he'd make her hunger for him, twitch for him, wet for him. He knew how to do that. He was the King after all. He wasn't going to let the Big Goof mess this up—not this time.

"Oh!" she exclaimed and leaned back to look down at the pulsing heat snuggling into her and giving her a quick nod of greeting. "Um…" she bit her lip and glanced up nervously at Ensei.

"See what you do to me," he growled against her lips and captured them again in a hungry, searing kiss. His whole body stiffened suddenly when her warm hand circled his rigid shaft.

Mmmmm, the King hummed with the swift surge of energy pulsing through him at that heavenly touch that was uniquely Jyuusan-hime's—a grip as strong as a man's in the silky palm of a woman's hand. Uuuhhhhnnn, the King couldn't help a full-length shiver. He heard her gasp at the vibration she felt inside him. Heh-heh. Plenty more where that came from, my princess, the King flexed his muscles, thickening in her grip. Just hang on.

Ensei's hand wrapped around Jyuusan-hime's and guided her over him until she became bold and exploratory on her own. He ran his hands up over her sumptuous rear end, pushing the shirt up out of the way. His fingers slid between them and dipped inside her, teasing her in time with the squeezing caresses of her hand on him. They stroked each other with increasing intensity as fiery pulses crashed through them, until their heated, shallow panting tore through their kisses, allowing only feral cries and whimpers against each other's skin.

The King poured his love over Jyuusan-hime's eager fingers and she swirled it slickly, feverishly around his crown, making him ache for her in throbbing desperation. Ensei's fingers plunged deep inside Jyuusan-hime and the tight push rocked through her, making her hand clench around his erection.

Upright, open, straddled around Ensei's waist, she realized the feeling of his fingers inside her was different than before, pushing against the weight of her body, thrusting deeper. She could feel the wetness oozing down on her inner thighs as a cool night breeze snaked between her legs. Her entire body burned in waves of wildfire devouring her. As she rocked her hips forward, his erection pulsed against her velvet opening and she pushed against it.

Wicked, smoldering eyes peered down into Ensei's. She rolled her hips again, this time slicking her wetness against the hot head of his arousal and gasping and shuddering as a small wave, a taste of what was coming, shook through her.

Ensei slinked a smile against her parted, huffing lips. "You're in charge here, little bird. Nice and slow," he coaxed her with that low, husky voice she couldn't resist.

Her eyes widened and she smiled and blushed and arched into him, her strength surging, in control of this moment. She tipped her face up and drew deep breaths against the tingling pulses washing over her. She clenched her thigh muscles tight as she lowered herself onto him and heard and felt that powerful, erotic groan of pleasure rumbling in his chest that she now knew signaled his nearing climax.

Her own orgasm ignited as she sunk lower onto his hot, hard shaft. She convulsed around him in undulating spasms while taking him deeper, letting him kiss the secret core of her being, reaching her more intimately than she thought possible.

Her head fell back and a shattering cry erupted from her lungs as she drove herself down onto him. She rode the thundering explosion inside her that swelled her climax to an answering magnitude. Her thighs and hips quivered and flexed, her body locking in a tight spasm, as wave after wave of surging, pulsing electricity sizzled up her spine and burst along her scalp. She hung there, endlessly, at the peak of paradise, out of control, her body moving with the movements inside her, twitching with delicious, little shocks, until she was released in a limp heap in Ensei's quivering arms.

Jyuusan-hime huddled breathlessly, shuddering, against Ensei's heaving, steamy chest, not one ounce of her own energy left at her command. He was little better, barely capable of staying upright and circling her in his weak arms. What power they had was focused in the thundering heartbeats, pounding together, as they slumped against each other.

The King, however, was _juuuust_ fine. He relaxed and snuggled up in the buoyant warmth of his new favorite place in the world. Goodness, but he was sleepy! Maybe he'd overdone it just a tad, pushed a little too hard, showed off a little too much…naaaaah. The kiddies were awfully quiet, though. Speechless. Breathless. Boneless. Heh-heh. Maybe they'll stay out of trouble for a while.

Yep, he'd done a good thing, he hummed to himself as he drifted off to sleep. He promised to do it again too, as many times as it took to get these two crazy hearts beating together as one, as they were now, as they should always be. As stubborn and stupid as they both were, it'd be a challenge, but he was up for it. Well, he would be after a little nap anyway. Sure. No problem. Hail to the King, baby.


End file.
